One’s upbringing does not have to define who they become. This theme is very important because a lot of people are told, growing up, how their lives are supposed to go. Cultures and family expectations lead to a lot of ideals in one’s day-to-day life, and the story Everyday Use by Alice Walker is a story that highlights the effects of familial culture affecting relationships within the family. Everyday Use is a story about a mother and her two daughters who debate about the significance of family heirlooms. A controversial point of the story is when the characters disagree about the purpose of heirlooms from their grandmother. I believe this is a valid concern, but I also think that this speaks a lot to the culture that they grew up in. There are many factors of the story’s construction that affect the viewpoint of the story. These fiction elements are character, point of view, and plot. 

The plot is a monumental part of this theme in the way that events play out for the   characters and lead to the discussion of the quilts toward the end of the story. The discussion of the quilts is significant because this is the heirloom that the family disagrees about. The narrator, Mama, tells the reader about her daughters Maggie and Dee, and proceeds to narrate a tale about how her daughter Dee relates to her ancestors in different ways. A climactic point of the story is when Dee stumbles across blankets of her grandmother’s and asks Mama if she can keep them. Mama replies by saying that the quilts are intended for Maggie, and Dee says that they are priceless and would care for them in ways to avoid them turning into rags during everyday use. Maggie tells Mama that it’s okay for Dee to keep the blankets because she can remember their grandmother without the quilts. Mama is unhappy with this and takes the quilts away from Dee and offers her different ones. Dee finishes the story by saying “You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you’d never know it.” This quotation shows Dee’s values in how she sees herself. She is not who her mother raised her to be, and she encourages Maggie to also find herself and who she is outside of her mother’s farm. Some people turn out very different from how their upbringing and familial culture expected them to, and Dee is a perfect example of that. 

A very important factor to consider in the theme of this story is the characterization. The narrator, Mama, is a woman who grew up working on a farm and never got an education. She describes herself as: “I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day.” She continues to emphasize her abilities as a farming woman. Mama goes on to describe her daughter Maggie, who is a lot like the expectation that she had. She says because she, herself, is uneducated, she has Maggie read to her sometimes. “Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can’t see well. She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passes her by.” This is interesting because it shows that Maggie is like Mama in the way that she embraced the same way of life that Mama had, and also turned out uneducated like Mama. Mama speaks of all of these things about Maggie as if it is okay to be uneducated, which is strange because she should want more for her daughter than what she had. This is all different from Dee, because Dee made a life for herself and lived a different life from her sister Maggie, who turned out like her mom. Dee is described to the reader as a girl who wanted nice things. “At sixteen, she had a style of her own: and knew what style was.” The differences in characters in this story is such a big factor when considering the theme of the story. Mama’s style and expectations in her parenting make a large impact on her daughters and their relationships. Maggie turns out a lot like her mother, and Dee doesn’t which emphasizes the theme that not everyone turns out the way their upbringing expected them to. 

Another aspect to consider when analyzing the theme of this story is point of view. Mama is a woman who is proud of herself. She is so proud that she thinks anything outside of what she guided her children to be is a bad thing. The relationship between Mama and her daughter, Dee, suffers greatly because of this factor, and causes Dee to drift away from the values her mom has.

After Mama earns enough money with the church, she does send Dee off to school in Augusta, which admittedly, is different from Mama’s upbringing. This information is told to the reader after Mama explains that she thought Dee hated them as much as she hated their house that burned down. The way Mama describes Dee’s ability to read is: “She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know.” This exposition of Dee being educated and able to read develops this view of Mama’s feelings and resentment toward Dee. This shows a bias against Dee because although Mama did send Dee off to school, this resentment toward her daughter for being able to read is unnecessary. Her other daughter, Maggie, was uneducated and she accepted it as her bring not bright. She was happy with Maggie turning out uneducated just like her because it justified her whole life. Mama’s outlook toward Dee is so upsetting because since she was a child, Dee was resented by her mother for appreciating her education and expressing that she can read. As she found a style for herself, her mother uses words and phrases with negative connotations such as “A dress so loud it hurts my eyes.” This negative perspective and bias against Dee throughout the story is a flag about Mama and her reliability throughout the story. As a narrator she may be first person reliable, but her bias against Dee does affect how the reader views the story. This is very important because it changes the reader’s mind about thematic elements throughout the story. 

Dee tells Mama and Maggie that she wants to go by a different name, and this puts the story onto an interesting start because this is where we begin to learn Dee’s values in how she appreciates her culture. Mama sees the name as her sister’s and does not recognize it for its oppressive nature as Dee sees it. Dee wants to appreciate her culture and this is what leads her to ask for Grandma Dee’s quilts so she can cherish them and keep them safe so their memory lives on. In Dee’s eyes, the quilts are priceless because they hold individual stitches that her grandmother did by hand. Putting the quilts to “everyday use” would harm them and make Grandma Dee’s memory die fast. Mama repeatedly shows bias against her daughter who lives a different life than expected, and this is shown in her point of view, characterization, and in the plot points.

Annie Baker-Bauer

Works Cited 

Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use”. Perrine’s Story and Structure 9th Edition. Ed. Laurence Perrine; Thomas R Arp. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998.