SHORT STORY UNIT: STORY #1 Everyday Use Alice Walker
Aim:
Critically evaluate the characterization within Everyday Use through sharpening students’ ability to
focus on subtext and its effects.
A. Procedure
 Begin class with a 4-5 minute quiz/do now:
 Identify 1 literary element that is not strongly emphasized in a short story:
-plot
 Which character is most emphasized in Everyday Use?
-Dee/Wangero
-Mama
- Asalamalakim/Hakim-a-barber
-Maggie
 What reality show might Mama apply for and why??
-The Tonight Show (most famously hosted by Johnny Carson)
-any show involving Johnny Carson
-Oprah
-Doctor Phil
-any show with some featuring a reunion a family with a charismatic male host
 Collect the quizzes, divide them according to the answers to question #2: all the people
who answered Dee/Wangero work together, those who answer Mama work together, the
same with Asalamalakim/Hakim-a-barber and Maggie; these should be divided as equally
as possible, with about the same number of people per group
 Brief class exercise on intonation; write the following sentence on the board and ask for
volunteers to stress one word at a time, identifying the subtext as you go along:
“I’m glad you’re hear this evening”
-With I’m the subtext becomes, “even though no one else is”
-Glad indicates that you haven’t always felt this way
-You’re makes the subtext, “Frankly, the others bore me.”
-Here implies “It’s so reassuring to see you right here.”
-With evening the subtext becomes “This is so much better than any other time of
the day”
 Now do the same with the following sentence:
“Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dash”
-Aunt implies Wangero should use the correct title when talking about Dee
-With Dee the subtext become “Don’t you know your family members?”
-first reveals Maggie’s awareness of her family history
-husband show Maggie’s anger that D doesn’t know her family members
-whittled implies an appreciation for the craft
-the makes the dish stand out as a unique piece
-dash makes the subtext “He whittled this piece, not the others.”
 Allow the groups to prepare their skit for about 10 minutes
 Presentations will carry over into the next day.
Wangero: “Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!”
Hakim-a-barber: “Asalamalakim, my mother and sister!”
Wangero: “Don’t get up”
Mama: “Well, Dee.”
Wangero: “No, Mama. Not ‘Dee’, Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!”
Mama: “What happened to ‘Dee’?”
Wangero: “She’s dead, I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me.”
Mama: “You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie.”
Wangero: “But who was she named after?”
Mama: “Her mother. That’s about as far back as I can trace it.”
Hakim-a-barber: “Well, there you are”
Maggie: “Uhnnh”
Mama: “There I was not, before ‘Dicie’ cropped up in our family, so why should I try to face it that far
back?”
Mama: “How do you pronounce this name?”
Wangero: “You don’t have to call me by that if you don’t want to”
Mama: “Why shouldn’t I? If that’s what you want us to call you, we’ll call you.”
Wangero: “I know it might sound awkward at first”
Mama: “I’ll get used to it. Ream it out again.”
Mama: “You must belong to those beef-cattle people down the road”
Hakim-a-barber: “I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style”
Wangero: “Oh, Mama! I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints. That’s
it! I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have. That churn top is what I need. Didn’t
Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?”
Mama: “Yea”
Wangero: “Un huh. And I want the dasher, too.”
Hakim-a-barber: “Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?”
Maggie: “Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dish. His name was Henry, but they called him Stash”
Wangero: “Maggie’s brain is like an elephant’s. I can use the churn top as a centerpiece for the alcove
table, and I’ll think of something artistic to do with the dasher.”
Wangero: “Mama, can I have these old quilts?”
Mama: “Why don’t you take the one or two of the others? These old things was just done by me and Big
Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died.”
Wangero: “No, I don’t want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine.”
Mama: “That’ll make them last better.”
Wangero: “That’s not the point. There are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all the
stitching by hand. Imagine!”
Mama: “Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come from old clothes her mother handed down to
her.”
Wangero: “Imagine!”
Mama: “The truth is, I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas.”
Wangero: “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts! She’d probably be backward enough to put them to
everyday use.”
Mama: “I reckon she would. God knows I been saving ‘em for long enough with nobody using ‘em. I
hope she will!”
Wangero: “But they’re priceless! Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags.
Less than that!”
Mama: “She can always make some more. Maggie knows how to quilt”
Wangero: “You just will not understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!:
Mama: “Well, what would you do with them?”
Wangero: “Hang them”
Maggie: “She can have them, Mama. I can ‘remember Grandma Dee without the quilts.”
Mama: “Take one or two of the others.”
Wangero: “But you just don’t understand”
Mama: “What don’t I understand?”
Wangero: “Your heritage. You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It’s really a
new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live, you’d never know it.”
INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
____ prop
____ a tableau (a still image of the characters on stage; some characters should start as if
they were frozen) at the beginning of the presentation
____ a tableau at the end of the presentation
____ at least one moment of direct address to the audience
____ at least one unexpected entrance or exit
____ at least one moment of unison movement
____ at least 10 seconds of pause
____ someone must laugh and someone must cry
ANSWER PRIOR TO PERFORMANCE:
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What role does your character play in the story? Narrator? What perspective do they provide?
Does the character’s importance vary according to the other characters?
Is he/she a major character or minor? How do you know?
What is your character’s opinion of the others?
If you took the character out of the story, in which ways would the story change?