The short story Everyday Use by lauded author Alice Walker was published in Harper’s Magazine’s April 1973 issue. It also appeared in her short story collection In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women, published the same year.
Everyday Use is about an African-American mother and her two daughters who represent contrasting attitudes, views, and practices towards the black American culture and heritage. The central idea is that culture and heritage are not just the objects and symbols that represent it, but also something to be practiced daily, hence the title ‘Everyday Use’. Walker does an excellent job of bringing this theme to life through various literary devices, such as symbolism, contrast, irony, plot structure, and strong character development. This literary analysis essay explores Walker’s loud use of symbolism to build on the central theme and support other narrative techniques.
Everyday Use by Alice Walker Short Story Summary
Mrs. Johnson or Mama is seated in the yard outside her house. She lives in the deep rural South and is waiting for her daughter, Dee, who’s visiting from town with her partner. With her at home is her other daughter, Maggie, who’s shy, uneducated, and more country than Dee.
When Dee arrives, she’s wearing an orange and yellow dress, gold dangling earrings and bracelets, and her hair standing straight with two long pigtails running behind her ears. This is in sharp contrast with Maggie who’s wearing a plain pink skirt and red blouse, walks with her chin on her chest, feet in shuffle, and tries to run away when Dee arrives. Dee is accompanied by her male partner, Hakim-a-barber, who greets Mama and Maggie with an Arabic greeting, ‘Asalamalakim’. Dee attempts to greet everyone using a language spoken by the Buganda people of Uganda with “Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!”. She then rushes back to the car, comes back with a Polaroid camera, and begins documenting and snapping pictures of Mama and the house, of Maggie cowering behind Mama, and of a cow that comes nibbling in the yard. Dee also announces that she now goes by the name Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo.
They then sit down to eat and Dee begins gushing over the food and the benches they’re sitting on. She then closes her hands over the butter dish that belonged to Grandma Dee and goes over to the corner to admire the butter churn that stands with clabber. Dee says she wants the churn top and the dasher to use as artistic pieces in her home. She wraps the pieces, and for a moment, Mama takes the dasher and observes the small visible sinks on the handle left by its previous users in the family.
After dinner, Dee goes to Mama’s bedroom and brings out two quilts. She asks sweetly whether she can have the quilts but Mama recommends that she take one or two of the others that are machine-stitched. Dee insists on taking the two specific quilts but Mama admits she intends to give the quilts to Maggie when she gets married. After a short argument, she snatches them from Dee and gives them to Maggie. Dee is furious and as she leaves, she states that Maggie and Mama don’t understand how to appreciate their heritage.
How Does Alice Walker Use Symbolism in Everyday Use?
Symbolism is an artistic device where an object, word, situation, location, image, abstract idea, or virtually anything is used to represent something else beyond its literal meaning. The meaning assigned can be universal, such as the color red symbolizing love, or contextual, based on a fictional world created in a piece of art.
In literature, symbolism enriches a story by adding depth and layers to its meaning, allowing a writer to say more with less. Symbolism is a major part of the short story Everyday Use. Walker uses symbolism to advance her central theme by showing what culture and heritage are and what they aren’t; the symbolic objects that represent cultural heritage are for everyday use and not photography or for show. She also uses symbolism to support other literary devices, such as contrast, irony, plot, and character development.
Some explicit and dominant symbols in Everyday Use are objects and artifacts in Mama’s house.
Quilts and Quilting
The two quilts that Dee fishes out of the trunk at the foot of Mama’s bed are the most recognizable symbol in Everyday Use. From bringing women together to preserving histories and key events, quilts and quilting have been a huge part of the African-American heritage to date. Quilting was traditionally born out of necessity for Black Americans, but quilts later became a rich visual celebration of culture and heritage, with contemporary artists and communities creating more designs and adding meaning to this art.
In Everyday Use, the quilts hold a great deal of family history and markers of key events in the Johnsons’ family. Grandma Dee had pieced or sewn the quilt pieces together while Mama and her sister, Big Dee, had quilted them to make the final pieces. The quilts are both made with pieces that preserve memories and hold sentimental value to the Johnsons.
“In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra’s uniform that he wore in the Civil War.”
They’re also handmade, which enriches their personal value. Having learned quilting from Grandma Dee and Big Dee, Maggie is a living heritage of the Johnsons and overall African American culture that was passed down through generations.
Quilts are the central objects of the main argument between Mama and Dee and are key to the plot’s climax. Dee wants the two specific quilts to hang in her house because of the cultural heritage value they possess, while Mama feels they’re better off with Maggie who’ll put them into (good) everyday use. By saying no to Dee, “a word the world never learned to say to her”, Walker asserts the story’s central theme of what experiencing culture and heritage truly means.
The contrast between the two sisters’ intended use and view of the quilts further paints this divide between living and performing culture. Maggie will put them to their intended use – on the bed – and reckons she can remember her loved ones without the quilts, while Dee will hang the quilts as art to remember Grandma Dee and Big Dee. As someone who values and keeps a few memorabilia here and there, it’s not unjustified for Dee to want to hang the quilts to honor her family members. Still, Mama doesn’t hide her disapproval of this when she remarks to herself, “As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts.” The fact that Mama had also offered Dee one of the quilts when she went away to college but she had then found them old-fashioned and out-of-style, however, doesn’t do much to support Dee’s case and further bolsters the superficiality of her newfound cultural appreciation.
The Butter Churn
Like the quilts, the churn is a family heirloom holding a long history, from how it was made to the generations of the Johnsons who have used and left their mark on it. Dee’s uncles’ had whittled out the dasher and churn top. The dasher’s handle that sticks out when Dee wraps the pieces to carry represents a rich family history that Dee is unaware of. Mama describes the handle:
“You didn’t even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood.”
Dee intends to use the churn top as a decorative piece and the dasher for other artistic purposes, despite it still being in use, – “… went over in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it clabber by now.” It’s this arrogance and disregard for the objects’ everyday use that brings out the superficiality and vainness of her antics. Maggie, on the other hand, well understands the origin of the churn and probably often puts it to use. This contrast between cultural heritage as an aesthetic vs. a lived experience which you’ll find repeated with almost every symbolic artifact in Everyday Use, further reinforces the narrator’s idea of culture and heritage.
The Dinner Table Benches
The benches at the dinner table make a short appearance in the story but are also a symbol of the family’s struggle, history, and everyday life. Dee’s father made the benches from scratch when the family was too poor to afford chairs. The rump prints along the bench indicate long-term use by the family, but to Dee, they’re yet another artifact to fawn over without appreciating its everyday use.
Names
The name Dee adopts, Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, is symbolic of her frivolous view of her culture and heritage. She associates cultural appreciation with external objects, such as names and aesthetics.
The name she rejects, Dee, is one of the things that tie her to her family identity and cultural heritage. She’s named after Mama’s sister, Dicie or Big Dee, who’s named after Grandma Dee. The narrator can even trace the name back to family members beyond the Civil War, indicating an abundant family history. Thus, by dropping her family name and adopting a new African name, Dee severs a family connection and cultural heritage, which is the opposite of what she’s trying to do. The opposite of ending the oppression she speaks about. “‘I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me’”.
This situational irony shows her dissociation with true culture and heritage in broader strokes and further discredits cultural appreciation by aesthetics rather than everyday use.
The House
It’s quite debatable whether the narrator is reliable, but from her point of view, Dee hated the previous house. She had written to Mama that she would come to see them no matter where they “chose” to live, but would never bring friends. Mama even insinuates that young Dee seemed unfazed when the old house burnt down — “Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes? I’d wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.”
The house is a representation of the family’s resilience and struggle. It’s a basic three-roomed house with a tin roof, cut-out holes for windows, and rawhide as shutters. It’s in a pasture, like the other house, and like many other sharecropper homes. This way, the house also symbolizes African American communities’ struggle during slavery and later, sharecropping.
After years of hating her impoverished family’s house and way of living, Dee returns home for a brief visit and suddenly fawns over and starts taking numerous pictures of the house.
“She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included.”
The visual I get of the narrator’s description is that of mindless influencers or elitists who snap pictures of people’s everyday lives for purely aesthetic purposes. Not because they’ve taken the time to live and learn the culture, but to collect images and probably frame some. Mama and Maggie, in contrast, live in and tend to the house. It’s their comfort place, such as when Maggie attempts to run back upon Dee’s arrival or at the end when they’re content to retreat to the house after the day.
Dee’s Clothing
Finally, Dee’s clothes and appearance as she arrives, enlightened by the city and education, represent her newfound cultural identity. She’s wearing African-inspired clothes and accessories, and her hair combed up straight, reminiscent of an Afro – a popular African American hairstyle that signified freedom and liberation in the 1970s. Like most things, her appreciation and manifestation of this new identity are external, superficial, and rooted in aesthetics.
The sunglasses Dee puts on at the end as she’s leaving are a perfect metaphor for what the narrator thinks about this new approach to culture and heritage. The way the sunglasses blind everything “above the tip of her nose and chin” is similar to how blinded she is by this identity that she can’t see how ironic and contradicting it is. Thereby, Dee continues to live in her ignorant bliss and arrogant attitude towards the real African American heritage when she puts on the glasses back and leaves with her nose turned up.
Final Thoughts on the Symbolism in the Everyday Use by Alice Walker
Symbolism is so apparent in Alice Walker’s short story Everyday Use, that it’s almost impossible to miss it. From the quilts to the butter churn, Mama’s house, and some of the characters’ names, Walker uses various artifacts as symbols of African American culture and heritage. Each character’s perception and interaction with the objects connect the symbolism to the story’s central theme by underlining what it truly means to appreciate a culture.
While Dee selfishly wants both quilts to hang as cultural artifacts in her house, Maggie has learned quilting and will put Granda Dee’s quilts to their intended use. While Dee wants the dasher and churn top for house decor, Maggie puts it to its use; churning butter. These moments of contrast carry the plot forward till its climax when Mama finally puts her foot down and says no to Dee. What Dee misses is that part of the beauty and heritage of these objects is in their everyday use and not just their mere representation of something.
I enjoy reading stories in which the author has clearly put meticulous effort into employing (a) particular literary devices to support the central idea, and Everyday Use by Alice Walker passes this vibe check.
What did you think about Alice Walker’s use of symbolism and other literary devices in Everyday Use?
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