John Smith
May 11, 2012
“She’d probably be backward enough to put it to everyday use”
In “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker uses the quilt and the butter churner as symbols to illustrate the importance of sentimental value within families. The quilt is the more significant of the two, so as a result, Maggie and Dee argue over who should have it. When one wants it for everyday use and the other wants to basically “retire” it and use it as a decoration, who should Mama Dee give it to? Dee is the hip, artistic daughter out of the two, and when she wants to take just part of the butter churner for decoration, the churner becomes unusable. Mama Dee gets put in difficult situations in this short story and the magnitude of sentimental value gets tested throughout “Everyday Use.”
The quilt becomes the central conflict towards the end of the story, and for good reason. Mama Dee says that both of the quilts had scraps of Grandma Dee’s dress she wore fifty years ago, bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts, and finally a blue piece of Great Grandpa Erza’s Civil War uniform. These quilts are undoubtably priceless. Mama Dee has kept this quilts for a long time because she feels like every time she uses them, she is connected to memories of the people she loves. This is the reason that Mama Dee does not want to give them to Dee and let her use them as decoration. Dee says this about Mama Dee saying she is going to give the quilts to Maggie, “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use” (Walker, 172)! Mama Dee ends up responding and saying that she would love for them to be put to everyday use and cherished. Dee definitely does not want the quilts to use, she wants them to hang up, but possibly she wants them so when she has friends over she gets attention because they think she preserved them so well and is artistic. Either way, Maggie deserves the quilts more than Dee because, in this instance, everyday use trumps over everyday decoration.
The Essay on Dee Quilts Story Maggie
Baker, Houston A. and Baker, Charlotte Pierce. "Patches: Quilt and Community in Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use'." Short Story Criticism: Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction Writers. Gale Research Inc. , 1990. 5: 415-416 In a critique titled "Patches: Quilt and Community in Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use'" (Short Story Criticism: Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Short Fiction ...
Maggie’s appreciation for the quilt is far greater than Dee’s. After Dee asks Mama if she can have the quilts, the context says this, “I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed” (Walker, 172).
This is Maggie’s reaction to hearing that Dee wants the quilts given to her. When it says that something fell in the kitchen, that illustrates how surprised Maggie is that Dee would feel inclined to have the quilts. Then when it says that the door slammed, the reader can see how frustrated and angry Maggie got and her love for the quilts. After a dispute outbreaks between Mama and Dee about who should have the quilts Maggie gives up and says this, “She can have them, Mama,” she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. “I can’ member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (Walker, 173).
Maggie understands sentimental value, but Dee does not because she feels like she needs something to be connected with her past loved ones. After Mama explains how Maggie actually helped make a portion of the quilt, Dee gives up. She storms outside and says, “It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you’d never know it” (Walker 173).
By Dee saying this, she can ruin her relationship with her family and disgracing her their legacy.
Sentimental value is something that we all cherish is life. That one object that has no price tag and the first thing you would grab if your house was on fire. Something with sentimental value is has age or theres a limited amount of them around. The butter churner in “Everyday Use” has sentimental value for a couple reasons. Its a very old machine that is used for a long time in the book, and it has been used in the family for awhile, so you could see the finger marks and how much the wood has deteriorated, but thats what makes it valuable. When Dee see’s the churner she says this, “ This churn top is what I need, didn’t Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have” (Walker, 171)? Dee wants the top strictly for decoration. This will ruin the legacy of the butter churner because it will not be used anymore, again she “retires” the butter churner because Dee’s artistic mind gets in the way of her family. When Maggie says, “Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dash” (Walker, 171).
The Essay on Stolen Party Story Maggie Quilts
In "An End to Audience?" , Margaret Atwood discusses the responsibilities of fiction writers. She believes that the function of a fiction writer is to examine society in ways "through which we can see ourselves and the ways in which we behave towards each other" (17). Another responsibility for an artist is to speak out the forbidden and be the voice of the powerless. These theories can be applied ...
It says that she says this is a very low voice. This means that they are reluctant to let Dee just take the churner because they understand what kind of significance it has to the family. Dee’s artistic ideas are getting in the way of her family and ruining relationships.
Works Cited
Walker, Alice, “Everyday Use.” Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 10th ed. Eds. Thomas Arp and Greg Johnson. Ft. Worth, TX: Harcourt, 2009, 166-174.
