Everyday Use an Essay by Alice Walker

In “Everyday Use” an essay by Alice Walker, she demonstrates that there was a totally different framework about daughters from what we have previously read. She shows the reader that instead of having mother and daughter relationship issues there are problems between the two sisters. Walker wanted us to think about how this was also a social norm in the 1960’s and not just think about how the mothers and daughters fought.

In “Everyday Use” there are two sisters, Dee and Maggie.

Dee is prettier and smarter than Maggie because Dee was able to go to college on funds that were given to her. Maggie despises that fact that her sister gets everything handed to her on a silver platter and she gets nothing. When Dee came home to visit from college, she of course thought she could still get anything she wanted if she asked for it. And so when Dee asked to have the quilts I guess that drew a line.

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Their mother was going to hand down the quilts to Maggie because she was tired of seeing those blankets go to waste and she knew Maggie would use them with a purpose. However, Dee was not used to hearing the word “no” told to her, and so she got very defensive and when she could not fight anymore she stormed off and left. For Maggie, this was the first time she was able to get what she really wanted, even though her mother fought her fight for her, she still came out the winner in the end.

The two daughters are completely opposite from each other. Dee is beautiful, smart, out spoken, and even has a man by her side, and then there is Maggie; round, not very pretty, not very smart, quiet, still lives at home and does not have any man. Dee represents the perfect daughter in any other story and Maggie represents more of the outcast. However, in this story their mother sees Maggie as the loving, caring and supporting daughter and she sees Dee as the rude outcast who thinks she can have everything she wants by the snap of her fingers.