analysis essay on everyday use by alice walker

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People value their cultural heritage in different ways . Some are proud of who they are and where they come from . Others hide with shame their origins and native culture . In to fit in , some people pretend they belong to a certain cultural group - usually the majority group in the society they live in - when , in reality , they descended from another Still others , in not to deny their cultural heritage , promote it in a way that would generate acceptance among others like glossing over the unattractive

traits and customs of their people . Alice Walker 's short story , Everyday Use , shows two differing ways by which African-Americans view their cultural heritage through the characters of Mrs . Johnson and her daughter , Dee

The story is narrated in the first-person by Mrs . Johnson who describes herself as a large big-boned woman with rough , man working hands .can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man .work outside all day (Walker ' She is uneducated , having finished second grade only . She is hard-working and made tough by a tougher life growing up at a time when civil rights and emancipation were new concepts and American society was yet struggling to come to terms with the idea of equal treatment between the races . Even long after segregation has been abolished , Mrs . Johnson has not learned to embrace it fully . She could not even imagine herself looking a straight white man in the eye (Walker ' Borne out of habit and her own sense of history , the white man for Mrs . Johnson and others like her , is someone you treat with deference or secret hatred

Mrs . Johnson has two daughters . Maggie is a very shy girl . Her mother describes her walk as that of a lame animal sidling up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him (Walker ' She is not intelligent like the other sister , not as ambitious , and her future is laid out for her . She will , like her mother , marry a childhood friend and be a good wife and mother . She has lived with her mother all her life , influenced by her attitude and way of thinking . Maggie would eventually become her mother in a few years

Dee , Mrs . Johnson 's other daughter , is the women . She is modern , educated , confident , and believes herself to be a progressive thinker in terms of her African-American heritage . She had the intelligence , ambition and potential that , even in childhood separated her from the rest in the neighborhood and her family . Growing up , she wanted nice things (Walker . As a grown-up she had changed her name to something more African-sounding . She also wears clothes in loud colors as most Africans do

The conflict in the story ensues when the differing values of Mrs Johnson and Dee clash one day when Dee comes for a visit to get the churn top , dasher and a quilt her great grandmother made . She asks these things from her mother because she is going...