Afro-American Psychology in Everyday Use
Alice Walker is an African American writer who wrote many novels, short stories, and poems. In her outstanding story, "everyday use", Walker attempts to depict the Afro-American community while stopping at a crossroad following ages of oppression.
The characters portray a clear-cut picture of the inner conflict within the black community itself, reflecting the struggle on Maggie, Dee, and Johnson’s characters. Maggie comes in as a fragile, vulnerable, and fainthearted black girl who feels inferiority and shame beneath the gaze of her impeccable sister, as if Walker is trying to tell us how some of the black people felt insecurity and weakness. Even if they got rid of their tangible shackles, they seem to linger in their psychological ones. Contrarywise, Dee represents the fierce, confident, enthusiastic black youth who is eager to speak against racism and alter all the wrongs. Despite Dee and Hakim being so blatant to state their objections frankly and expressing them through clothes and changing names, it’s evident how shallow these objections actually are, for their passion for defending their noble issue didn’t prevent them from degrading their own people; Dee’s dissatisfaction with everything related to the country life and Hakim’s disdain for farming and raising cattle voice a good deal about their façade of independence, as if white men's centuries of enslaving blacks and holding them for farm labor is still shaping the way in which they view their community.
The story is also concerned with how different groups of people view their heritage. At the beginning of the story, the mother fantasises about reuniting with Dee on a television show, and that shows that their relationship is complicated, and that they have grown apart from each other. This makes the mother lack understanding of Dee's world and intention, where Dee sees her heritage as something that should be "hung", just like she did with her old name before she changed it to Wangero, whereas the mother thinks of said heritage as "everyday use", and that it is what should be done in order to keep that heritage alive - to keep it living amongst them to remember the people who made it. It is a theme that Alice Walker had always portrayed in her works – the struggles within the African-American culture.
Written by:
Salma Reda
Salma Yasser
Mariam Mohamed Hosny
I think it is important to keep our legacies living among us, it is the only true way for others to know about our identities.
ReplyDeleteThat is true. I think Walker made this concept obvious at the end of the story when Maggie kept the quilts, as it symbolizes the heritage.
DeleteIn my point of view, the differences between Dee and the rest of her family were obvious throughout the story, Moreover, Alice Walker tended to create that contrast through the characters' appearances and surroundings before their conversations.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing Walker meant to imply a sense of foreshadowing to the theme of the story through the characters initial descriptions.
DeleteDee’s character is an expected result from the oppression black people were facing at the time. It is normal for her to somehow want to change and evolve.
ReplyDeleteRight. She just did so the wrong way.
DeleteOne may think that Dee is stronger due to the way she had gotten the chance to grow up, yet she ends up not getting what she wants at the end.
ReplyDeleteYeah! Because Dee considered her heritage as a useless thing. She wanted to neglect it completely and to keep evolving. Thus, she lost everything.
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