This work is supposed to be posted in apos;Blackboardapos; however my computer is currently unable/unwilling to run that program. Therefore, I will post it here until the apos;Blackboardapos; issue is resolved.
Discussion questions for Alice Walker
The narrator in apos;Everyday Useapos; is Maggie and Deeapos;s mother. The story is told in the first person, from the point of view of the girls mother. By writing the story from her perspective, the author is able to use a particular type of language or turn of phrase that is endearing in itapos;s honesty. apos;My fat keeps me warm in zero weatherapos; is a fine example of the narrators style of speech.
The stories setting is the family home where Maggie and her mother still live. The house is described simply and is obviously a modest building with apos;no real windows, just some holes cut in the sideapos;. It is the house the three woman moved to after the fire that burnt down their last house and left Maggie severely burned. The house represents the polarity between Dee and her mother. The narrator is obviously very fond of her home describing her yard as apos;an extended living roomapos; where apos;anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm treeapos;. Dee, on the other hand, considers it the very antithesis of black repression. A cruddy little shack in a paddock without real windows.
The narrator describes herself as apos;a large, big boned woman with rough, man-working handsapos;. She does not however say this with shame and I feel that their is a sense of pride in the hard work she is able to do. apos;I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hogapos;. She has not been educated past grade 2, nor does she question why that was the case. She appears to be someone who does not question her lot in life, instead working hard� and in a sense apos;getting on with itapos;.
The narrator is well aware of the extreme difference between her two daughters.� On the one hand there is Maggie, the wounded soul with the disfiguring burn scars on her arms and legs whom her mother describes as apos;a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless personapos;. Maggie has been this way since the house fire. She is nervous in her sisterapos;s presence and looks on Dee with apos;a mixture of envy and aweapos;. Her mother however, treats her daughters equally, regardless of their personal issues or idiosyncracys.
It seems that Deeapos;s mother looks on her as some type of exotic and demanding rare species. She knows that they donapos;t understand each other and I think that she has given up trying. Dee has always apos;wanted nice thingsapos; yearned for a life far away from where she grew up. Her resentment over all things apos;oppressiveapos; are beyond the realms of her mothers everyday life. Regardless of the obvious differences between the two girls, their mother still treats them equally the same.�
While it is the dispute over the quilts that is the climax of the story, the extreme difference in values between Dee and her mother and sister provides the stories conflict. There is simmering tension from the moment Dee and Hakim-a-barber arrive.
There are two area in particular that the narrator uses to contrast herself against Dee. The first is physical. As described in the fourth question about the narrators character, she is a hard working woman. apos;At sixteen she had a style of her own: and she knew what style was.apos; This is just one of the sentences Deeapos;s mother uses to describe their lack of similarities. The next obvious difference is their education. Deeapos;s mother was educated only up until early primary school whereas Dee wenapos;t all the way to college. There is definately an air of confidence in the way Dee is descibes. Her mother perhaps sums it up best when she compares herself and her daughters reaction to white people. She, the narrator, says apos;who can imagine me looking a strange white man in the eyeapos; while later on says of Dee apos;She would always look look anyone in the eyeapos;.
The significance of the title of this story apos;Everyday Useapos; is that Deeapos;s argument for why she should get the quilts instead of Maggie is that Maggie will use them and that apos;in five years theyapos;d be ragsapos;. Her mother however believes that they should be used instead of apos;hungapos; and just looked it.
I suppose the narrator ends up being on Maggieapos;s apos;sideapos; when it comes to deciding who should get the quilts. She seeapos;s the dafetest attitude that Maggie has. She recognises that Maggie is unable to fight or stand up for herself so she does it for her.
The quilt has symbolic meaning in this story. It symbolises the vast difference in the values of both parties. Dee is so consumed with herself and her feelings about how apos;unliberatedapos; her family is that is is unable or unwilling to consider their feelings. The quilt is all the things that Dee has and that Maggie doesnapos;t and never will.
I think that the meaning of this story might be acceptance. Or lack there of. Dee is unable to accept that her family do not want to jopin her on her crusade. She has moved as far away as possible from her past yet she can still not escape it. � � � � � �
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