Essay on Analysis of the Characters in Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use’
For this first journal, you will be reflecting on the short story “Everyday Use”. You need to read the stories first and then write a two page response. Your response must be in correct MLA formatting which means it must have a proper heading, running head, title, 12 size font, Times New Roman, double spaced and 1-inch margins all around.
Do not include a works cited page for journal entries.
Assignment:
For this week our author is writing about the relationship between a mother and her daughters. At one key point, Dee wants to take some items from her mother’s house. What are these items and why are they so important to Dee? Why does she think that she should have them instead of Maggie? What is the cultural significance of the items discussed?
You can live at the same house, yet live in two different worlds. You can share the same roots and blood with someone else, but not the same quality of life. No doubt there are times when these worlds cross with one another. And this is what Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is all about.
It is Mrs. Johnson who takes center stage in the first paragraphs of the novel. She was Dee’s mother and the story’s narrator. The way she uses her words were evident that she has a close connection with her environment. It was when she waited for Dee “in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy”.
