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Narration of "Everyday Use"

            Alice Walker's short story "Everyday use" tells the story of a mother and her two daughter's conflicts and differences in opinions. The mother narrates the story of when her older daughter Dee comes home from college to visit her and her younger daughter Maggie. The two sisters often clash over their differences and in this story over who gets to keep some heirloom quilts. The mother's narration is knowing of the characters and situations and she is a flat character with a personality that can be summed up in a few words.
             "Everyday Use" is narrated by a woman who describes herself as "a large,.
             big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands" (Walker 654). She has enjoyed a rugged farming life in the country and now lives in a small, tin-roofed house surrounded by a clay yard in the middle of a cow pasture. The mother is a middle aged black woman who has not had or known a lot of money or assets, and never made it through second grade. "I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down" (Walker 655). She lives with her younger daughter Maggie who also does not appear to have much of an education. Her older daughter Dee is away at college and likes to flaunt that fact that she is smart. The mother makes note that she is like a man and able to do all the chores that men and women are known for. This tells the audience that she has probably been playing father and mother to her children for quite some time.
             The first -person narrator makes "Everyday Use" have a strong theme and perception of the characters. It is the mother's point of view which lets the reader fully understand both Dee and Maggie. Read without this type of narration the two sister's characteristics would have seemed stereotypical. Dee as a smart but un-grateful college girl and Maggie as a sweet but unconfident homebody. Yet the mother's knowingness of her daughters shows their true characters. For example, Maggie's shyness is explained in terms of the fire she survived.


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