Name:_________________________________________Date:_____________________________Period______
“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker
Discussion Questions
Key
Characterization and Conflict
1. List the characteristics of the three main characters in “Everyday Use” as they
are revealed by the narrator.
Momma – loving, strong, hardworking, honest, practical, narrow-minded
Maggie – shy, nervous, backward, uneducated, generous, kind
Dee – condescending, arrogant, judgmental, pretentious, confident
2. How do the differences between these three characters add to the conflict in
the story?
Dee comes across like she better than Momma and Maggie – she even
changed her name. Momma and Dee are somewhat in awe of her and
perhaps even a little jealous of the life Dee lives. Dee asks for things in the
house, (churn, quilts) describing how she’ll use them for decorative purposes
rather than the purpose they were designed for. Dee claims she wants the
items so that she can perserve her heritage and that if Maggie had them, she
would just use them everyday, ruining them.
3. What is the conflict?
Dee wants two of Mamma’s quilts, but Mamma gives them to Maggie instead.
Point of View
1. What is the point of view in “Everyday Use”?
1st person (Momma)
2. How does the style of writing reflect the character of the person who tells the
story? That is, look at the language of the speaker. What are characteristics of
that language and how do those characteristics reflect the personality of the
speaker?
Colorful language, specialized diction, and Mama’s unique phrases and
observations give “Everyday Use” a sense of realism. Giving voice to a
member of a group that had typically been silenced, Walker gives Mama the
power to narrate and control and use language to convey her story and
thoughts in her own way. Walker has Mama use the specialized language of
butter churning and cheese making (Dee wants to take her mother’s “dasher”
and the “churn top”), which adds realism to the story. These objects evoke
the self-supporting life of a rural farm family and endless cycles of labor its
members face.
Symbolism
1. What do the quilts symbolize?
“Everyday Use” focuses on the bonds between women of different
generations and their enduring legacy, as symbolized in the quilts they
fashion together. This connection between generations is strong, yet Dee’s
Name:_________________________________________Date:_____________________________Period______
arrival and lack of understanding of her history shows that those bonds are
vulnerable as well. The relationship between Aunt Dicie and Mama, the
experienced seamstresses who made the quilts, is very different from the
relationship between Maggie and Dee, sisters who share barely a word and
have almost nothing in common. Just as Dee cannot understand the legacy of
her name, passed along through four generations, she does not understand
the significance of the quilts, which contain swatches of clothes once worn or
owned by at least a century’s worth of ancestors.
The quilts are pieces of living history, documents in fabric that chronicle the
lives of the various generations and the trials, such as war and poverty, that
they faced. The quilts serve as a testament to a family’s history of pride and
struggle. With the limitations that poverty and lack of education placed on
her life, Mama considers her personal history one of her few treasures. Her
house contains the handicrafts of her extended family. Instead of receiving a
financial inheritance from her ancestors, Mama has been given the quilts. For
her, these objects have a value that Dee, despite professing her desire to care
for and preserve the quilts, is unable to fathom.
2. What other evidence in the story lead us to see the quilts as symbols of a
bigger issue?
The fact that both Dee and Maggie want the quilts, and that Mamma ends up
giving them to Dee.
3. How does the climactic ending turn the tables on Dee’s use of terms like
“backward” and “heritage”?
Although claiming that the preservation of the quilts is of paramount concern,
Dee has no real understanding of or respect for her mother’s ancestors, viewing
them much as she views her mother: a country clod she is glad to have left
behind. While Dee claims to have reverence for the past, at the end of the story,
she criticizes Mama and Maggie for remaining mired in the old ways of living and
thinking. Creating a life altogether different from the past is Dee’s primary
objective. This attitude is yet another way in which she expresses her
disconnection to and lack of appreciation for her heritage. To Dee, life in the
country is something to escape, deny, and condemn. Her sudden turn to embrace
the objects of the past is thus all the more empty and unbelievable. While she
believes she is earnest, it is Mama, despite her poor education and lack of
worldliness, who sees the shallowness of Dee’s motives. For Mama, the best way
to protect the spirit of the quilts is to risk destroying them while in Maggie’s
permanent “care.” The irony of this is not bitter but touching: preserving the
objects and taking them out of everyday use is disrespectful because it disregards
the objects’ intended, original uses. Keeping them in circulation in daily life keeps
the family history alive.
4. What is ironic about Dee’s use of these words?
Dee does not really understand or truly appreciate her heritage. She still
looks down on her mother and sister for never seeming to change, calling
them old-fashioned. Dee’s name is even part of her heritage, yet she changed
thereby ignoring her family history.
Name:_________________________________________Date:_____________________________Period______
Theme
1. How does the title hint at the central theme of the story?
2. The significance of the title “Everyday Use” and the effect of the story’s
portrayal of a daughter’s brief visit hinge on the irony that comes from the
sisters’ differing intended use for the quilts. The quilts are most valuable to
Mama and Maggie, not as objects to be hung on the wall and respected as folk
art, but as the practical household items they are. Mama risks Maggie’s
harming or destroying the quilts, valuable and irreplaceable documents of
family history, in exchange for the peace of mind that comes from knowing
that they have been passed on to the right daughter. Mama contends that
Maggie, supposedly mentally inferior to her sister, has an ability that Dee
does not: she can quilt. While Maggie may subject the quilts to the wear and
tear of everyday use, she can replace them and contribute a scrap of family
history to the next generation. Dee wants to preserve the quilts and protect
them from the harm her sister might inflict, but she shows no true
understanding of their inherent worth as a family totem. She relegates the
objects to mere display items.
3. What is the central theme? What other evidence in the story hints at this
central theme? What in the story helps especially to bring the theme to life
for you and keep it from becoming an abstract idea?
Theme – family heritage. Angered by what she views as a history of
oppression in her family, Dee has constructed a new heritage for herself and
rejected her real heritage. She fails to see the family legacy of her given name
and takes on a new name, Wangero, which she believes more accurately
represents her African heritage. However, the new name, like the “African”
clothes and jewelry she wears to make a statement, is meaningless. She has
little true understanding of Africa, so what she considers her true heritage is
actually empty and false. Furthermore, Dee views her real heritage as dead,
something of the past, rather than as a living, ongoing creation. She desires
the carved dasher and family quilts, but she sees them as artifacts of a lost
time, suitable for display but not for actual, practical use. She has set herself
outside her own history, rejecting her real heritage in favor of a constructed
one.
Extension
1. What are the differences between Maggie and Dee? List those differences
specifically, with references to the story.
Maggie is uneducated, backward, timid, and plain. Dee is educated, outgoing,
confident and vibrant.
2. What do these differences suggest about conflict in this African-American
family?
Most people would see getting an education as being a positive thing. In the
case of this family, it’s as if education has further widened the gap between
Name:_________________________________________Date:_____________________________Period______
Dee and Maggie. They don’t understand one another and most likely will not
be able to overcome their differences.
3. Do you think these differences point to wider issues within the AfricanAmerican community, particularly when this story was written? What might
those issues be?
Education, racism, family heritage, social status
Name:_________________________________________Date:_____________________________Period______
“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker
Discussion Questions
Directions – ON A SEPARATE SHEET OF PAPER, answer each of the following
questions and be prepared to share your responses.
Characterization and Conflict
4. List the characteristics of the three main characters in “Everyday Use” as they
are revealed by the narrator.
5. How do the differences between these two characters add to the conflict in
the story?
6. What is the conflict?
Point of View
3. What is the point of view in “Everyday Use”?
4. How does the style of writing reflect the character of the person who tells the
story? That is, look at the language of the speaker. What are characteristics of
that language and how do those characteristics reflect the personality of the
speaker?
Symbolism
5. What do the quilts symbolize?
6. What other evidence in the story lead us to see the quilts as symbols of a
bigger issue?
7. How does the climactic ending turn the tables on Dee’s use of terms like
“backward” and “heritage”?
8. What is ironic about Dee’s use of these words?
Theme
4. How does the title hint at the central theme of the story?
5. What is the central theme? What other evidence in the story hints at this
central theme? What in the story helps especially to bring the theme to life
for you and keep it from becoming an abstract idea?
Extension
4. What are the differences between Maggie and Dee? List those differences
specifically, with references to the story.
5. What do these differences suggest about conflict in this African-American
family?
6. Do you think these differences point to wider issues within the AfricanAmerican community, particularly when this story was written? What might
those issues be?