Dee Versus Maggie: A Struggle for Self-Understanding

The twenties, a time marred by prohibition and television’s implantations, were widely known as a time of struggles such as the Great Depression and the beginning of what later became known as women’s rights. However, presumably the greatest struggle was that of ‘colored’ people. Because of limited resources, limited speech, and limited economic opportunities many ‘colored’ people sought ways to escape ‘everyday’ life and the hardships they often faced. One of these ways came by beginning to express themselves more freely. In addition, as a result, the Harlem Renaissance formed. In “Everyday Use”, Alice Walker, one of the frontrunners of the Harlem Renaissance, tells the story of an oppressed and under-privileged African American family with differing values on what it means to live, or more importantly, of one who struggles with understanding of their present life in relation to the traditions of their ancestors and culture. The audience is introduced to both girls at the beginning of the story. From the narrator’s vivid description of the girls, the reader quickly forms a distinction between the two daughters. The way Maggie walks is compared to that of “a dog run over by a careless rich person” (453). However, Dee is described as “lighter than Maggie, with nice hair and a fuller figure” (454). Just from the physical description, the readers can infer that Dee is the “prettier” of the two. Though they are totally opposites in physical features, both girls share a central theme. Alice Walker uses something as simple as a quilt to develop the central theme. This theme is that both daughters, Dee and Maggie, are confused about the meaning of their heritage. However, Dee’s confusion is a result of her not wanting to accept the way of her people versus Maggie’s confusion, which is the result of accepting the ways of her people.

When Dee returns from school with her male companion, she has changed her name to Wangero. This is the first instance of cultural confusion that is delivered to the reader. She claims it is done in an effort to reject the oppression of the taking on of American names by the struggling ‘colored’ people. She states “I couldn’t bear it any longer being named after the people who oppresses me” (455). However, to Dee’s mother, the name is symbolic of family unity. Dee’s mother traces the name back to Dee’s aunt, Dicie. The name holds a symbolic value to Dee’s mother because it belongs to a love one. Walker uses this strategy to show that Dee has little or no understanding of her heritage, and if she took the time to accept her people’s way of life, she would have a better understanding. Dee changing her name shows how she tries to mask her true culture with bits and pieces of her knowledge of her ancestors. However, this fails because Dee’s heritage does, in fact, encompass the very struggles of her people that she chooses to forget.

During the family dinner, Dee’s confusion about the meaning of her heritage also emerges in her attitude toward other household valuables. Dee praises the hand-carved benches that were made when the family could not afford to buy chairs. Though she rejects the family name given to her, she readily values their goods. In Dee’s perspective, the benches and the churn are souvenirs or aesthetic objects, and they have no symbolic value. Dee explains to her mother and Maggie that she can use the churn as “a centerpiece for the alcove table…..and I’ll think of something artistic to do with the dasher” (457). Dee has no valid reason for wanting the objects. She simply uses them to mask her rejection of her ancestors and their way of life. It was as if Dee’s only reason for coming home was to rifle through family heirlooms and see what she could find to fit her new lifestyle in with the old ways of her people.

The major confusion is introduced when Dee asks for the homemade quilts that her mother has promised to Maggie. Quilts have always been very symbolic because they represent the hard work and tradition of the previous generations. Quilts were passed on from oppressed generation to generation. The quilt was symbolic of the women of the past, and how the quilt was to be used was symbolic of how the oppressed would approach the future. Being that Dee had no true acceptance of her people and their way of life, she did not know this. When she was offered the quilt when she went away to college, she refused it and labeled the quilts as “old-fashioned, out of style” (457). Dee could not truly value the quilt because she was confused about how to approach the future and did not understand where she had come from. When the mother tells Dee that she can not have the quilts, she blurts out, “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts! She’d probably be backwards enough to put them to everyday use” (457). Dee’s determination to