thesis statement on everyday use

A Summary and Analysis of Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Everyday Use’ is one of the most popular and widely studied short stories by Alice Walker. It was first published in Harper’s Magazine in 1973 before being collected in Walker’s short-story collection In Love and Trouble .

Walker uses ‘Everyday Use’ to explore different attitudes towards Black American culture and heritage.

‘Everyday Use’: plot summary

The story is narrated in the first person by Mrs Johnson, a largeAfrican-American woman who has two daughters, Dee (the older of the two) and Maggie (the younger). Whereas Maggie, who is somewhat weak and lacking in confidence, shares many of her mother’s views, Dee is rather different.

Mrs Johnson tells us how she and the local church put together the funds to send Dee away to school to get an education. When Dee returned, she would read stories to her mother and sister. Mrs Johnson tells us she never had much of an education as her school was shut down, and although Maggie can read, her eyesight is poor and, according to her mother, is not especially clever.

Mrs Johnson also tells us how their previous house recently burned down: a house, she tells us, which Dee had never liked. Dee hasn’t yet visited her mother and sister in the new house, but she has said that when she does come she will not bring her friends with her, implying she is ashamed of where her family lives.

However, Mrs Johnson then describes Dee’s first visit to the new house. She turns up with her new partner, a short and stocky Muslim man, whom Mrs Johnson refers to as ‘Asalamalakim’, after the Muslim greeting the man speaks when he arrives (a corruption of ‘salaam aleikum’ or ‘ As-salamu alaykum ’). He later tells Mrs Johnson to call him Hakim-a-barber.

Dee then tells her mother that she is no longer known as Dee, but prefers to be called Wangero Lee-wanika Kemanjo, because she no longer wishes to bear a name derived from the white people who oppressed her and other African Americans. Her mother points out that Dee was named after her aunt, Dicie, but Dee is convinced that the name originally came from their white oppressors.

Dee/Wangero now starts to examine the objects in the house which belonged to her grandmother (who was also known as Dee), saying which ones she intends to take for herself. When Mrs Johnson tells her she is keeping the quilts for when Maggie marries John Thomas, Dee responds that her sister is so ‘backward’ she’d probably put the special quilts to ‘everyday use’, thus wearing them out to ‘rags’ in a few years.

Although Maggie resignedly lets her older sister have the quilts, when Dee moves to take them for herself, Mrs Johnson is suddenly inspired to snatch them back from her and hold Maggie close to herself, refusing to give them up to Dee and telling her to take one of the other quilts instead.

Dee leaves with Hakim-a-barber, telling her mother and Maggie that they don’t understand their own heritage. She also tells Maggie to try to make something of herself rather than remaining home with their mother. After they’ve left, Maggie and her mother sit outside until it’s time to go indoors and retire to bed.

‘Everyday Use’: analysis

The central crux of Alice Walker’s story is the difference between Dee and her mother in their perspectives and attitudes. Where Mrs Johnson, the mother of the family, sees everything in terms of the immediate family and home, Dee (or Wangero, as she renames herself) is more interested in escaping this immediate environment.

She does this first by leaving the family home and becoming romantically involved with a man of African Muslim descent. She also looks deeper into her African roots in order to understand ‘where she comes from’, as the phrase has it: not just in terms of the family’s direct lineage of daughter, mother, grandmother, and so on (Mrs Johnson’s way of looking at it, as exemplified by their discussion over the origins of Dee’s name), but in a wider, and deeper sense of African-American history and belonging.

This departure from her mother’s set of values is most neatly embodied by her change of name, rejecting the family name Dee in favour of the African name Wangero Lee-wanika Kemanjo. Names, in fact, are very important in this story: Maggie is obviously known by a European name, and ‘Johnson’, the family name borne by ‘Mama’, and thus by her daughters, doubly reinforces (John and son) the stamp of male European power on their lives and history.

Dee, too, is very much a family name: not just because it is the name the family use for the elder daughter, but because it is a name borne by numerous female members of the family going back for generations. But Dee/Wangero suspects it is ultimately, or originally, of European extraction, and wants to distance herself from this. Dee’s rejection of the immediate family’s small and somewhat parochial attitude is also embodied by the fact that she reportedly hated their old house which had recently burned down.

‘Everyday Use’ was published in 1973, and Dee’s (or Wangero’s) search for her ancestral identity through African culture and language is something which was becoming more popular among African Americans in the wake of the US civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Indeed, a productive dialogue could be had between Dee’s outlook in ‘Everyday Use’ and the arguments put forward by prominent Black American writers and activists of the 1970s such as Audre Lorde, who often wrote – in her poem ‘ A Woman Speaks ’, for example – about the ancestral African power that Black American women carry, a link to their deeper roots which should be acknowledged and cultivated.

However, Walker does some interesting things in ‘Everyday Use’ which prevent the story from being wholly celebratory off Dee’s (Wangero’s) new-found sense of self. First, she had Mrs Johnson or ‘Mama’ narrate the story, so we only see Dee from her mother’s very different perspective: we only view Dee, or Wangero, from the outside, as it were.

Second, Dee/Wangero does not conduct herself in ways which are altogether commendable: she snatches the best quilts, determined to wrest them from her mother and sister and disregarding Maggie’s strong filial links to her aunt and grandmother who taught her how to quilt. The quilt thus becomes a symbol for Maggie’s link with the previous matriarchs of the family, which Dee is attempting to sever her from.

But she is not doing this out of kindness for Maggie, despite her speech to her younger sister at the end of the story. Instead, she seems to be motivated by more selfish reasons, and asserts her naturally dominant personality and ability to control her sister in order to get her way. The very title of Walker’s story, ‘Everyday Use’, can be analysed as a sign of Dee’s dismissive and patronising attitude towards her sister and mother: to her, they don’t even know how to use a good quilt properly and her sister would just put it out for everyday use.

We can also analyse Walker’s story in terms of its use of the epiphany : a literary whereby a character in a story has a sudden moment of consciousness, or a realisation. In ‘Everyday Use’, this occurs when Mrs Johnson, seeing Maggie prepared to give up her special bridal present to her sister, gathers the courage to stand her ground and to say no to Dee. She is clearly in awe of what Dee/Wangero has become, so this moment of self-assertion – though it is also done for Maggie, too – is even more significant.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Alice Walker’s Everyday Use

Analysis of Alice Walker’s Everyday Use

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 24, 2021

Probably Alice Walker ’s most frequently anthologized story, “Everyday Use” first appeared in Walker’s collection In Love and Trouble: Stories by Black Women. Walker explores in this story a divisive issue for African Americans, one that has concerned a number of writers, Lorraine Hansberry, for instance, in her play Raisin in the Sun (1959). The issue is generational as well as cultural: In leaving home and embracing their African heritage, must adults turn their backs on their African-American background and their more traditional family members? The issue, while specifically African-American, can also be viewed as a universal one in terms of modern youth who fail to understand the values of their ancestry and of their immediate family. Walker also raises the question of naming, a complicated one for African Americans, whose ancestors were named by slaveholders.

The first-person narrator of the story is Mrs. Johnson, mother of two daughters, Maggie and Dicie, nicknamed Dee. Addressing the readers as “you,” she draws us directly into the story while she and Maggie await a visit from Dee. With deft strokes, Walker has Mrs. Johnson reveal essential information about herself and her daughters. She realistically describes herself as a big-boned, slow-tongued woman with no education and a talent for hard work and outdoor chores. When their house burned down some 12 years previous, Maggie was severely burned. Comparing Maggie to a wounded animal, her mother explains that she thinks of herself as unattractive and slow-witted, yet she is good-natured too, and preparing to marry John Thomas, an honest local man. Dee, on the other hand, attractive, educated, and self-confident, has left her home (of which she was ashamed) to forge a new and successful life.

Alice Walker/Thoughtco

When she appears, garbed in African attire, along with her long-haired friend, Asalamalakim, Dee informs her family that her new name is Wangero Leewanika Kemanio . When she explains that she can no longer bear to use the name given to her by the whites who oppressed her, her mother tries to explain that she was named for her aunt, and that the name Dicie harkens back to pre–CIVIL WAR days. Dee’s failure to honor her own family history continues in her gentrified appropriation of her mother’s butter dish and churn, both of which have a history, but both of which Dee views as quaint artifacts that she can display in her home. When Dee asks for her grandmother’s quilts, however, Mrs. Johnson speaks up: Although Maggie is willing to let Dee have them because, with her goodness and fine memory, she needs no quilts to help her remember Grandma Dee, her mother announces firmly that she intends them as a wedding gift for Maggie. Mrs. Johnson approvingly tells Dee that Maggie will put them to “everyday use” rather than hanging them on a wall.

Dee leaves in a huff, telling Maggie she ought to make something of herself. With her departure, peace returns to the house, and Mrs. Johnson and Maggie sit comfortably together, enjoying each other’s company. Although readers can sympathize with Dee’s desire to improve her own situation and to feel pride in her African heritage, Walker also makes clear that in rejecting the African-American part of that heritage, she loses a great deal. Her mother and sister, despite the lack of the success that Dee enjoys, understand the significance of family. One hopes that the next child will not feel the need to choose one side or the other but will confidently embrace both.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” In Major Writers of Short Fiction: Stories and Commentary, edited by Ann Charters. Boston: St. Martin’s, 1993, 1,282–1,299.

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An Analysis of 'Everyday Use' by Alice Walker

Appreciation, Heritage, and the Generosity of Effort

• Short Stories
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• Ph.D., English, State University of New York at Albany
• B.A., English, Brown University

American writer and activist Alice Walker is best known for her novel " The Color Purple ," which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. But she has written numerous other novels, stories, poems, and essays.

Her short story "Everyday Use" originally appeared in her 1973 collection, "In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women," and it has been widely anthologized since.

The Plot of 'Everyday Use'

The story is narrated in the first-person point of view by a mother who lives with her shy and unattractive daughter Maggie, who was scarred in a house fire as a child. They are nervously waiting for a visit from Maggie's sister Dee, to whom life has always come easy.

Dee and her companion boyfriend arrive with bold, unfamiliar clothing and hairstyles, greeting Maggie and the narrator with Muslim and African phrases. Dee announces that she has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, saying that she couldn't stand to use a name from oppressors. This decision hurts her mother, who named her after a lineage of family members.

Claims Family Heirlooms

During the visit, Dee lays claim to certain family heirlooms, such as the top and dasher of a butter churn, whittled by relatives. But unlike Maggie, who uses the butter churn to make butter, Dee wants to treat them like antiques or artwork.

Dee also tries to claim some handmade quilts, and she fully assumes she'll be able to have them because she's the only one who can "appreciate" them. The mother informs Dee that she has already promised the quilts to Maggie, and also intends for the quilts to be used, not simply admired. Maggie says Dee can have them, but the mother takes the quilts out of Dee's hands and gives them to Maggie.

Chides Mother

Dee then leaves, chiding the mother for not understanding her own heritage and encouraging Maggie to "make something of yourself." After Dee is gone, Maggie and the narrator relax contentedly in the backyard.

The Heritage of Lived Experience

Dee insists that Maggie is incapable of appreciating the quilts. She exclaims, horrified, "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use." For Dee, heritage is a curiosity to be looked at—something to put on display for others to observe, as well: She plans to use the churn top and dasher as decorative items in her home, and she intends to hang the quilts on the wall "[a]s if that was the only thing you could do with quilts."

Treats Family Members Oddly

She even treats her own family members as curiosities, taking numerous photos of them. The narrator also tells us, "She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house."

What Dee fails to understand is that the heritage of the items she covets comes precisely from their "everyday use"—their relation to the lived experience of the people who've used them.

The narrator describes the dasher as follows:

"You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood."

Communal Family History

Part of the beauty of the object is that it has been so frequently used, and by so many hands in the family, suggesting a communal family history that Dee seems unaware of.

The quilts, made from scraps of clothing and sewn by multiple hands, epitomize this "lived experience." They even include a small scrap from "Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War ," which reveals that members of Dee's family were working against "the people who oppress[ed]" them long before Dee decided to change her name.

Knows When to Quit

Unlike Dee, Maggie actually knows how to quilt. She was taught by Dee's namesakes—Grandma Dee and Big Dee—so she is a living part of the heritage that is nothing more than decoration to Dee.

For Maggie, the quilts are reminders of specific people, not of some abstract notion of heritage. "I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts," Maggie says to her mother when she moves to give them up. It is this statement that prompts her mother to take the quilts away from Dee and hand them to Maggie because Maggie understands their history and value so much more deeply than Dee does.

Lack of Reciprocity

Dee's real offense lies in her arrogance and condescension toward her family, not in her attempted embrace of African culture .

Her mother is initially very open-minded about the changes Dee has made. For instance, though the narrator confesses that Dee has shown up in a "dress so loud it hurts my eyes," she watches Dee walk toward her and concedes, "The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it."

Uses the Name 'Wangero'

The mother also shows a willingness to use the name Wangero, telling Dee, "If that's what you want us to call you, we'll call you."

But Dee doesn't really seem to want her mother's acceptance, and she definitely doesn't want to return the favor by accepting and respecting her mother's cultural traditions . She almost seems disappointed that her mother is willing to call her Wangero.

Shows Possessiveness

Dee shows possessiveness and entitlement as "her hand close[s] over Grandma Dee's butter dish" and she begins to think of objects she'd like to take. Additionally, she's convinced of her superiority over her mother and sister. For example, the mother observes Dee's companion and notices, "Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head."

When it turns out that Maggie knows much more about the history of the family heirlooms than Dee does, Dee belittles her by saying that her "brain is like an elephant's." The entire family considers Dee to be the educated, intelligent, quick-witted one, and so she equates Maggie's intellect with the instincts of an animal, not giving her any real credit.

Appeases Dee

Still, as the mother narrates the story, she does her best to appease Dee and refer to her as Wangero. Occasionally she calls her as "Wangero (Dee)," which emphasizes the confusion of having a new name and the effort it takes to use it (and also pokes a little fun at the grandness of Dee's gesture).

But as Dee becomes more and more selfish and difficult, the narrator starts to withdraw her generosity in accepting the new name. Instead of "Wangero (Dee)," she starts to refer to her as "Dee (Wangero)," privileging her original given name. When the mother describes snatching the quilts away from Dee, she refers to her as "Miss Wangero," suggesting that she's run out of patience with Dee's haughtiness. After that, she simply calls her Dee, fully withdrawing her gesture of support.

Needs to Feel Superior

Dee seems unable to separate her new-found cultural identity from her own long-standing need to feel superior to her mother and sister. Ironically, Dee's lack of respect for her living family members—as well as her lack of respect for the real human beings who constitute what Dee thinks of only as an abstract "heritage"—provides the clarity that allows Maggie and the mother to "appreciate" each other and their own shared heritage.

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Everyday Use

Alice walker, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Heritage, and its relationship to daily life, is the central question that Walker explores in “Everyday Use.” Through the eyes of Mama , and through the contrasting characters of Dee and Maggie , Walker offers two varying views of what family history, the past, and “heritage” really mean.

In Dee’s view, heritage is a kind of dead past, distanced from the present through nostalgia and aestheticization (which means reducing something to a symbol or piece of art, and so removing other meanings and uses from it). Dee rejects the parts of her heritage that belong to the immediate past or, even, are still present in the family’s everyday life. Because of this, she disdains her sister and mother’s life on the farm, their continued use of family heirlooms, and their ancestral house . Dee shows her anger towards this immediate past in her happiness when their house burned, her readiness to leave her home behind when she went to college, and her lack of interest in learning family skills like sewing. Instead of this immediate heritage, Dee idealizes an African culture that she only shallowly understands, one that predates her family’s history in the United States and the history of slavery. She chooses that culture as the basis for her “heritage,” calling herself by the African name “Wangero” and altering her style of dress. When Dee returns to her home as an adult, she attempts to make her immediate past as distant and imaginary as this African one. Dee photographs her family and their house, turning them into art-objects, and insists on taking home the family’s heirlooms—a hand-carved and well used butter churn, her grandmother’s quilts —to display as decorations and artifacts in her house. She doesn’t want to actually live in the house with her family or use the objects, only idealize them as memorabilia—hollow signs of heritage that have no connection with her real life.

Overall, Walker seems to criticize this imagined, distant view of heritage. She depicts Dee’s quaint, aestheticized vision of her family and their still-living customs as cold, elitist, and hurtful. Mama resents Dee for her attempts to put their lifestyle firmly in the past, and Dee’s meanness in this respect can be seen in the way she laughs at and looks down on Maggie for her appreciation of the family history. Moreover, Walker suggests that Dee’s view of heritage is utterly misguided and uninformed. For instance, Dee believes that she is named after white “oppressors,” when in fact she is named after her beloved Aunt Dicie.

Mama and Maggie, on the other hand, exemplify the alternative view of heritage that Walker proposes— one in which heritage is a part of everyday life, fluid and constantly being added to and changed. Mama and Maggie have no higher education or knowledge of Africa, but they do appreciate their more immediate roots: their house, their family heirlooms, their traditions. The quilts, which Dee wants to display as art, Maggie would put to “everyday use,” using them as blankets, putting them on beds—the way they were intended to be used. Maggie, unlike Dee, also learned to sew from her grandmother, and so can add to the family collection, pass on her skills, and keep the tradition alive.

In refusing to give the quilts to Dee and instead giving them to Maggie, Mama rejects Dee’s idealized view of heritage and instead embraces a relationship to heritage that is dynamic and continually developing. Though perhaps Mama and Maggie’s view of heritage could also be enriched by education and knowledge of their African roots, the fact that they don’t distance themselves from their family history makes their understanding of heritage more real and significant than Dee’s. As a result, Dee’s accusation that Mama does not “understand” their heritage rings as bitterly ironic, since Walker has made it clear that Dee is the one out of touch with her family’s way of life.

Heritage and the Everyday ThemeTracker

Heritage and the Everyday Quotes in Everyday Use

How long ago was it the house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie’s arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. And Dee…Why don’t you dance around the ashes? I’d wanted to ask her. She had hated that house so much.

‘What happened to Dee?’ I wanted to know. ‘She’s dead,’ Wangero said. ‘I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me.’

You didn’t even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. It was a beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash lived.

Maggie can’t appreciate those quilts! ...She’s probably backward enough to put them into everyday use.

‘You just don’t understand,’ she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car. ‘What don’t I understand?’ I wanted to know. ‘Your heritage,’ she said.

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Everyday Use — “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker

"Everyday Use" by Alice Walker: Summary

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About this sample

Words: 549 |

Published: May 4, 2021

Words: 549 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

The essay explores Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use" and delves into the themes of heritage and identity within the narrative. The story is narrated by Mama, a hardworking woman awaiting the return of her daughter, Dee, who has been away at school. Mama's younger daughter, Maggie, is also present but feels overshadowed by Dee's success and confidence.

Dee arrives with her boyfriend, Hakim-a-barber, and immediately shows an interest in family artifacts, such as a butter churn and some handmade quilts. She has changed her name to "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo" to distance herself from her family's history of oppression. The conflict arises when Dee insists on taking the family quilts, which Mama had promised to Maggie. Mama ultimately decides to give the quilts to Maggie, recognizing her appreciation for their heritage.

The essay highlights the contrasting views of heritage and identity between Dee, who seeks to display her roots as a form of art, and Maggie, who values the practical and emotional significance of these items. It underscores the idea that heritage is not just about preserving objects but also understanding the experiences and traditions passed down through generations. In the end, Mama's choice to give the quilts to Maggie reflects her belief that heritage should be used and cherished rather than put on display.

Depiction of Heritage and Identity in Walker's "Everyday Use"

Works cited:.

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• American Medical Association. (2019). About the AMA.
• Brenner, A. M. (2017). The role of mentors in medical student career development. Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development, 4, 2382120517718585.
• Dolmans, D. H., Wolfhagen, I. H., & Essed, G. G. (2005). Students' perceptions of relationships between some educational variables in the Maastricht medical curriculum. Medical Education, 39(5), 470-477.
• Global Health Workforce Alliance. (2016). A universal truth: No health without a workforce. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/workforcealliance/knowledge/resources/GHWA-a_universal_truth_report.pdf?ua=1
• Jain, R. (2017). Healthcare delivery in India: Challenges and opportunities. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 7(4), 87-91.
• Kumar, S., & Goyal, A. (2015). An analytical study of medical tourism: A review. Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Management, 3(2), 37-44.
• National Institutes of Health. (2021). MedlinePlus: Medical encyclopedia.
• World Health Organization. (2021). WHO guidelines for the management of cancer pain in adults and children. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241550369
• World Health Organization. (2022). Global strategy on human resources for health: Workforce 2030. https://www.who.int/workforcealliance/knowledge/resources/HRHStrategyWorkforce2030.pdf?ua=1

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Thesis Statement For Everyday Use- Find out

To acquire an impactful Thesis Statement For Everyday Use, one must comprehend the short story and pinpoint the themes and anthropologies that focus on the African cultural identity and one’s relations with their heritage. 

Everyday Use is a short story written by Alice Walker in 1973. It’s the part of the short story collection known as In Love and Trouble. The short story has been majorly analyzed and studied about African heritage and socio-cultural dynamics of the same.

As Everyday Use presents multiple notions regarding cultural heritage, racial heritage, family values and relationships,  adaptations and accommodations to other cultures ad their assimilation, it presents varying characteristic narratives echoed by the characters present in the story and can provide a different point of view.

Thus, the following are the possible thesis statements for Alice Walker’s Everyday Use:

Decoding the title: how ‘Everyday Use’ represents Alice walker’s narrative

One can put their stance on the significance of the title. As Alice walker portrays the daily lives of people and their relations with cultural and racial identity. Daily tasks such as weaving quilts and the argument of its purpose illustrate different narratives on how cultural identity is perceived with the distinction of how they use their quilts. 

As Maggie and Dee believe the quilt is used for providing warmth and comfort and they revel in the craftsmanship of it which is passed down from generation to generation and thus builds a cultural connection and community while Dee believes its purpose is to be showcased as an aesthetic and a label of what her cultural and racial identity is. One can consider the usefulness according to DEE and others and the contrast of such ideals.

The symbolism of the quilt portrayed by Alice walker

The quilt is the symbol of how cultural and racial antiquities are perceived. Walker illustrates its materialistic properties on how performative activism is rendered to physical efforts and not reaching the community to an interpersonal level to bring racial and cultural acceptance.

As Dee aspires to make it her showpiece for her aesthetic, she still questions its usefulness. The contrast acceptance of antiquities can be depicted in modern activism ( the political appropriation of Kente cloth in 2020, and the usage of black squares on Blackout Tuesday ).

Whereas Mama and Maggie view the quilt at a grounder level and its practicality with the communal harmony of passing its weaving technique from generation to generation which adheres to connecting their cultural identity.

The differing weightage regarding family relationships and cultural and racial heritage 

Alice Walker illustrates the Johnson family as a weighing scale. The daughters are the weights with differing opinions and attitudes, tilting the household ideals while Mama is the mediator. Maggie is closer to her mother, and values her ancestors and cultural values, and is depicted to have more knowledge of the same. As she’s capable of weaving a quilt, she is familiar with the cultural technique. Yet she’s not sufficiently educated on the matters of knowing the theory of her racial and cultural identity. Whereas Dee is incapable of connecting herself with her culture and family on an interpersonal level. She values the quilt as a materialistic show piece of her cultural identity and not as the symbol of community and its purpose beyond just a show piece for visual aesthetics. Even though she’s educated enough to distinguish her identities, her superficiality disbars her to practice the same rightfully.

The racial difference in rural and urban society

as ‘everyday use’ discusses how racism and its issues are discussed in the varied settings of both urban and rural societies, it depicts how the rural society might be nonchalant and indifferent towards this issue. Mama and Maggie aren’t particularly geared towards equality and racism as they don’t have the sufficient education or idealism to come to a stance. 

Whereas Dee is educated significantly enough to explore the idea of racial equality and racism, with her ideals of cultural aesthetics and her notions of progressing her identity clashes with her family’s. as Dee dons her cultural name Wangero While the Johnsons appear to be attached to their westernized name which gives insight to their differing opinions.

Dee’s possible relation with the burned-down house

Many critics have entertained the possibility of how Dee’s hatred for their previous house might have a possible connection with its fire arson that led to her sister being scarred for life. As Mama has hinted strongly and frequently enough about Dee’s hatred for the burned-down house. As recounting the experience as her of standing and watching it been to the round with a cold stare.

There is a requirement for more evidence to claim this thesis statement, with a character analysis of Dee one can show her self-centered she is. One can entertain both possibilities of whether she was the one who burned down the house or not. With only first-person narration provided, one should go through more plot analysis to thoroughly present thuds thesis.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement is written as the conclusion of the introduction to a study or research. It consists of the main point of the essay or research paper. There are two types of thesis statements, direct and indirect: the direct thesis statements reason for their thesis in elaboration while the indirect thesis does not. The thesis statement then directs the remaining parts of a research paper, with body, conclusion and references and completes the whole layout.

How to write an impactful thesis statement?

One could make an intriguing thesis statement regarding what their claim is, it should be clear and concise with a direct narrative. It should be a complex statement unfamiliar and unique to general knowledge and backed with sufficient data. In the case of argumentative research study, unpopular thesis statement proves to be stronger thesis statements.

Conclusion 

In regards to Alice Walker’s Everyday Use, it’s important to highlight the major insights that provide the base, argument, research evidence, and satisfactory conclusion for your thesis statement. A reader should get a clear idea of what you’ve interpreted and analyzed from the story and what stands your claim with your thesis statement and provide a succinct message to your evaluators or readers.

Finally, as a researcher, you should have the qualitative experience and knowledge of thesis statement preparation and provision for the same.

Frequently Asked Questions 

• What’s the need for Thesis Statement?

The significance of the thesis statement is embedded in research papers or studies due to its writing direction and focus. It provides the main general idea of a paper and gives a clear summary or gist of the main theme of the paper.

• How to come up with a thesis statement?

you need to be clear about your research topic and familiar with it, to the point you can base necessary questions on it. Then, you need to come up with the main answer for your question and base your thesis statement around it.

• How do differentiate the thesis statement from the introduction?

To not amalgamate your introduction and thesis statement altogether, you need to place your thesis statement at the end of the introduction with distinct paragraph spacing as a conclusion to your introduction.

African-American Heritage in the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker Essay

Introduction, works cited.

‘Everyday Use’ is set in the American rural down South; superficially, it is a story of Mama Johnson and her conflicting psychological reception and relationship with her two daughters, Dee and Maggie (Xroads). Dee has taken an impressive formal education and now works in an urban environment; she is light skinned and sophisticated (Xroads).

Maggie has never left, she is the typical country girl, even in appearance and there are still traces of scars that she obtained from a house fire. Mama Johnson, who was born and grew in the early days of the past century, is struggling to understand the implications of her own background (represented by Maggie) in comparison to the life that Dee now leads. She keeps comparing Dee and Maggie. In the end she favors the practical life and values of the less fortunate Maggie instead of the superficial values of Dee.

Deep down, the story is exploring the question of African-American heritage; the story, probably set in the ebbing days of the 1960s or at the dawn of 1970s, coincides with the attempt of African-Americans to define their identity in terms of culture (Xroads).

The term ‘Negro’ was gradually replaced with ‘Black’ but the pains and injustices of the past had been so cruel that the black people are willing to deny and reject their American heritage (Xroads). This story is an exploration of both African and American heritages of the black people; the three characters represent the three faces of this theme.

Mama represents the uncertain link between the African and American heritages. From mama’s description of herself, the way she takes pride in her expertise at killing and cleaning a hog, makes one see that she appreciates the practical aspects of her life and nature, it is easy to assume that she cannot ponder such an abstract concept as heritage.

Yet, even with her lack of formal education and refinement, her respect and love for those who preceded her reflects her inherent comprehension of heritage through the way that she is able to associate pieces of clothes in two quilts with those who’s clothes the pieces had been cut from (Xroads). The quilts “are special to Mama when she touches the quilts, it is her way of touching the people that the quilts represent” (Xroads).

These quilts are a symbol and represent gone times to which one still has a shaky and ambivalent relationship; the same symbolism is portrayed through the dasher handle. When mama touches the ridges left by fingers of those who are gone, she connects with them (Xroads).

Dee’s superficial nature: her personality, her dressing and speech, represents the superficial perspective of heritage that the Black Power movement preached. There are inconsistencies in her style and her manner and she does not understand the origin of her name ‘Dee’ and the link to her family; this is a reflection of her attempt to reject her American heritage.

Maggie, on the other hand, is nervous in the presence of Dee and is ashamed of her scars and hides from Dee; these scars symbolize the fires of slavery. Her manner: staring at the ground, her feet in shuffle; she represents the American heritage of the black people.

Dee and Maggie do not interact, it is only as the story ends that Dee speaks to her angrily as she is leaving; this ending portrays the relationship of the African and American heritages. The former acting inferiorly before the latter that does not hesitate to flaunt its perceived superiority and assert its assumed disconnection from the former.

The general argument that Alice projects here is that African-American is a product of both African and American natives, and rejecting the American face is not only disrespectful to their respective ancestors, but also detrimental to that heritage which defines the blacks.

Xroads. “Everyday Use by Alice Walker.” 2011. Web. < http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug97/quilt/walker.html >

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, February 22). African-American Heritage in the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. https://ivypanda.com/essays/everyday-use-by-alice-walker-2/

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IvyPanda . 2022. "African-American Heritage in the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker." February 22, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/everyday-use-by-alice-walker-2/.

1. IvyPanda . "African-American Heritage in the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker." February 22, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/everyday-use-by-alice-walker-2/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "African-American Heritage in the “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker." February 22, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/everyday-use-by-alice-walker-2/.

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