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Lyndsey Eliason
John J. Dursema, Professor
ENGL-1010-051
8 April 2011
That Everyday Feeling: A Literary Analysis of Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use.”
“Mommy, who do you love more, me or sister?” This question was a frequently asked question
in my house while growing up, all in attempt to win the very common sibling rivalry. At age six did I
really think anything of it? No, I never actually though my mother would look at me and say: “Of
course I love your sister more than I love you, sweetie.” But I never really thought about how my
mother actually felt towards me and my sister until after reading “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. The
narrator's feelings towards her two daughters are set in stone and based on many years of reasoning.
When her oldest daughter returns home for a short visit Mama's opinions of her two daughters
drastically changes.
The beginning of the story starts out by Mama describing how happy she is with the way the
yard looks, clean, like it belongs in the house not outside of it. Mama states that her property was so
well-groomed in preparation of her oldest daughters visit that “it is not just a yard. It is like an extended
living room” (Walker 300). This clean yard she is so happy about was hard work and time spent with
her youngest daughter, Maggie, and the narrator has very positive feelings about the yard and her
daughter. Then Mama swiftly goes into describing her youngest daughter, “she will stand hopelessly in
the corner, homely and ashamed” (Walker 300). Maggie, who feels envious of her older sister, Dee,
who Walker describes as having the world in the palm of her hand.
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The view of Mama's younger daughter is quickly changed from a loved daughter who helped
her mother create a beautiful landscape for the arrival of her sister, to a very homely, awkward, and
envious girl. The way the narrator speaks of her younger daughter only decreases her value to her as
the story goes on, ultimately leading to her being much like a “lame animal.”
Maggie is so frightened and seems to be the most unimportant character in the story. Maggie's
actions are just brushed off and as usually she is ignored in conversation. Through most of the
conversations with her older sister Dee, Maggie is not in the conversation at all and on few occasions
Maggie is not even in the same room for most of the story. Dee pays few compliments towards Maggie,
which hardly seem like any sort of compliment to begin with. When Dee tries to take the quilts that
were already promised to Maggie, at first Maggie's actions are very unlike her.
While Maggie is in the kitchen while the rest of the story takes place in another room, which is
very like Maggie, but when Dee asks her mother for the quilts, Maggie's presence in the conversation
quickly changes. “I heard something fall in the kitchen a minute later I heard the kitchen door
slammed” (Walker 306). By this point you are lead to believe Maggie will break out and no longer be
the “lame animal” Mama once believed she was. Meanwhile Mama is very non-committed to the fact
that she had already promised the quilts to Maggie, and Dee is very judgmental of her mother for this
decision and bad-mouths her sister in very a unnecessary way. But instead of Maggie breaking her very
typical view that Mama and Dee have of her, she so very passively offers up the quilts to Dee. Maggie's
actions completely change her mothers perspective towards her. Maggie becomes the daughter who
Mama has positive feelings towards Maggie. Mama realizes that she hasn't ever seen Maggie like this
and she hugs Maggie to her, which is something she has not ever done (Walker 307). The last
description of Maggie we get from Mama is extremely positive as well, “Maggie smiled, a real smile,
not scared” (Walker 307)
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The feelings that Mama describes about her oldest daughter, Dee, lead you to the feeling that
Dee is everything her mother ever wanted to be by dreaming of a world with Dee that she would never
be apart of. Dee's mother starts out with extremely positive feelings towards Dee. Describing Dee to be
on such a high pedestal Mama feels as though who she is, the way she looks and all of the hard work
she put into being Dee's mother, were never good enough. Mama imagines being reunited with her
daughter on a T.V. show, as if it were much more glamorous than she could ever amount to. The way
she describes herself looking on T.V. is nothing the way she actually looks, “I am the way my daughter
would want me to be” (Walker 301).
Mama compares her two daughters, Dee as beautiful and Maggie a much less better version.
Dee is portrayed as having such negative feelings, yet her mother talks about her so highly and in such
a positive manner. “She hated that house” Mama describes as the way Dee looked very pleased as their
house burned to the ground, “I used to think she hated Maggie, too” (Walker 301). Mama connects Dee
with so much hate and describes her with such negative emotions, but Mama still speaks of Dee so
highly.
Dee's mother quickly begins to change her oh so high views of her when Dee announces she has
changed her name because she was named after “people who oppress her” (Walker 304). Although
Dee's attitudes seem to be much more positive her actions begin to affect her mother and sister much
more negatively. The actions of Dee seemed to be extremely offensive to her mother, and this very
swiftly drags Dee down from this high pedestal her mother has been placing her on for so many years.
Throughout the story Dee is describes as so beautiful and full of color, and again, the last description of
Dee is completely opposite than it had been in the rest of the story. “She put on some sunglasses that
hid everything above the tip of her nose and her chin” Mama describes, like she was hiding from
something. (Walker 307)
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The view of the two daughters in “Everyday Use” at first seem to be all from a memory, as if
Mama was afraid to face the here and now. She places her views of her daughters on past places and
events, wishing and dreaming that she had done something differently with her life to be more like the
older daughter who seems to have it all. When Mama actually faces reality the opinion of her two
daughters change dramatically, and she ends up appreciating the here and now and enjoying her new
discovery. The negative and positive emotions that she felts towards her daughters directly affected her
happiness and the outcome of the story.
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Works Cited
Walker, Alice “Everyday Use” Writing: A Guide for College and Beyond. Ed. Lester Faigley.
NewYork: Pearson Customs, 2010. 300-307. Print.