Everyday use

Analysis of Everyday Use: for your gandmama

Historical background

Everyday Use: for your gandmama is one of masterpieces written by African-American woman writer Alice Walker. It is a story happens in a normal family in the rural south in 1960s when lots of changes in values and ways of life were taking place.

Alice Malsenior Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American author, poet, and activist. She has written both fiction and essays about race and gender. She is best known for the critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple (1982) for which she won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. She is a feminisim. “Black women can survive only by recovering the rich heritage of their ancestors.” This quote characterizes not only her works but also her as a person. She feels that a black woman’s salvation can only come from reaching their ancestors.

Living under Jim Crow Laws, Walker's parents resisted landlords who expected the children of black sharecroppers to work the fields at a young age. A white plantation owner said to her that black people had “no need for education.” Minnie Lou Walker said, "You might have some black children somewhere, but they don’t live in this house. Don’t you ever come around here again talking about how my children don’t need to learn how to read and write?” Her mother

enrolled Alice in first grade at the age of four.

Growing up with an oral tradition, listening to stories from her grandfather, Walker began writing, very privately, when she was eight years old. "With my family, I had to hide things," she said. "And I had to keep a lot in my mind.”She was very active in the Civil Rights Movement in 1960s, and in the 1990s she was still an involved activist.

Setting and plot

In Walker’s works, we can se e many things about her feminism and black culture especially the confliction between black and white cultures. For example, in this novel, we can feel the cultural confliction between America and Africa. The exact historical setting of the story is indicated, but a number of details point pretty clearly to a period covering part of the 1970s in the American South. For example, she mentions Johnny Carson, the host of a show at that time. Besides this, Everyday Use may profitably be read as a historical statement even thought no specific years are actually mentioned.

The setting is very important to understand the story. First is the yard where the mother and Maggie sit often , it indicate the simple and traditional life they live. Second is the old house. The house can be seen to represent part of the unpleasant or just plain charming aspects of the family’s culture and heritage___ being rural, uneducated poor

descendant of slaves. The third are the quilts. They represent the past of the women in the family as well as the culture and the heritage.

It describes a period and place where dramatic changes in racial relationships have taken place, where one young Southern black woman has rebelled against racism and chosen to express that rebellion by leaving her homeland and rejecting traditional and conventional standards and values. The family has three people: the mother (“I” in the story), two daughters Dee and Maggie. The story begins with Maggie and her mother (the narrator) anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Dee in their yard and ends with them sitting there feeling happier and more comfortable as before, watching her leave. This is the general plot of this story. More detailed, the story can be divided into 6 small plots:

1. Maggie and I cleaned the large yard carefully and then waited for Dee anxiousely.

2. Then is a meditation which means flashback. It depicts the imagined scene we met Dee and the introduction about Dee, Maggie and myself.

3. Finally Dee and her boyfriend came. They greeted with strange manners and Dee c hanged her family name and her boyfriend’s strange name.

4. We began to have dinner. Dee seemed to like the food very

much and like the old things in the house that she once hated, and she wanted to take something away.

5. After dinner Dee wanted to take the old quilts with her which I

have promised to give it to Maggie as her wedding presents. But finally I refused her requirement.

6. Dee and her boyfriend just left while I and Maggie sat in the

large yard and enjoyed the end of the day.

These are the major plots of the story. From the plots we can see the development of the story, how it begins, develops, reaches the climax and then ends. It is not totally a time order, but we can also understand the author’s meaning quite clearly.

Characters

With a flexible, perceptive voice of the first-person narrator, Walker puts three major characters in her work: I (the narrator), the mother,” large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands.” From my own description, I am not a skinny and elegant woman but a content, simple one, living in a practical way. In my family, there’s no man, so I have to do everything all by myself. From this we can see “I” In the story is a self-reliance and tough woman.

Maggie, one of my daughters, who is gentle but disabled and ugly and full of sufferings in her life. She walks likes a lame animal, “chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuttle”. From these sentences, a girl with

great unfortune appears in front of us. The younger daughter who stays with Mama while Dee is away at school. Though described by her mother as unintelligent and unattractive, Maggie is a very innocent and humble character. She leads a simple life with her mother and has a traditionally Southern life. On the other side, “ She will be nervous until after her sister goes, she will sand hopelessly”, Why Walker depicts such a situation?

Then is another character Dee whose stereotype of a smart but ruthless college girl, material lady, complex and lives a modern way of life. She is very "educated, worldly, and deeply determined"; she doesn't let anything get in the way of getting what she wants. Walker has descripted her many times and in many places. First is my impression on her. “’NO’ is a word the world has never learned to say to her”, not Dee says “no” to the world but personates the world “has never learned to say to her”____ this indicates Dee’s assertiveness.“Hesitation was no part of her nature”. In nature, Dee is a person has spirit of revolt, we can see this from her name changing though this action is regarded as forgetting her origin. So she is quite different from her mother and her sister. Literally, she is a round character while the other two are flat characters. Dee has changes a lot in many aspects.

The three characters are not literally meaning but also has metaphor meanings. Everyday Use humorously illustrates the differences between

Mrs. Johnson and her shy younger daughter Maggie, who still live traditionally in the rural South, and her educated, successful daughter Dee, or "Wangero" as she prefers to be called, who scorns her immediate roots in favor of a pretentious "native African" identity. In this novel, I am not only a mother but also a protector of the black heritage.

Maggie symbolizes the heir of the black heritage. She has suffered a lot just the some as the black culture, from her we can see the misery history of African-American people. She understands the true meaning of heritage. Just as her sister asserts, Maggie is "backward enough" to put the quilts to everyday use. But what Dee fails to recognize is that in doing so Maggie is preserving the ancestral importance of the quilts-- that is, utilitarian necessity. Maggie wants to maintain a lasting connection with her heritage, and both Mama and the reader recognize this. She represents those among the African-American community that seek to pass on their heritage without diminution between generations. But actually we can know that Maggie has already inherit the historical culture because she learned how to quilt from her gandmama. She can remember them without the quilts because they’ve already pressed in her inner heart. That is the heritage of the traditional culture.

Maggie indicates the black culture and heritage which has suffered a lot. I am her mother, I must protect her as well as the protector preserve the black culture. Mama loves and respects her ancestors. The quilts are

important to Mama as a direct connection between herself and those before her. Her practical nature and appreciation for heritage distinguishes her from her two daughters, and represents the complex, historical importance of the African-American culture. I am a guardian, a preserver of the black culture and black heritage. The mother symbolized that the black people should fight for their own interest, own culture, never tolerate any more. This is black people’s future.

Dee is a selfish and egotistical character with a superficial understanding of her inheritance. She characterizes the confusion and misguidance of young African Americans in the late 60s and 70s. This is apparent in her interactions with her mother and sister. She makes her feelings clear when she attempts to "take" the quilts Mama had promised to Maggie. By using the quilts for purposes other than their original intent she believes that she is respecting her heritage. Not only is she conforming to the worst of American ideals, but she is rejecting and disrespecting her own cultural heritage-- all under the pretenses of preserving it. It is in this sense that she is the "embodiment of the struggle for a unifying identity," because she has not yet come to understand her place in society as both an African and an American. We know that Dee has changed her attitude to these old things from hatred to preference. So what causes this change? The arousal of her national consciousness or just persues blindly?

Structure and style

The structure of the story can be divided into two big parts: the first part is set before Dee’s arrival. It provides an inside view of the family’s past and introduces the characters and their relationships towards each other. The second part begins when Dee arrives and lasts till the end of the story. At the very first Mama and Maggie were sweeping the yard and waiting for Dee, mama naturally sees the differences between Dee’s and her life and their moral concepts but she still longs for a reunion, unable to accept that the gap between them is already too big.

The second big part, beginning with Dee’s arrival, has a linear structure. It consists of four smaller parts. The first part ends with the first occurrence of Dee’s new name “Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo”. The reader notices the change of the time of narration: up to that point the narrator uses the simple present, but after Dee has changed her name it suddenly changes to simple past. This passage can be seen as the first turning point of the story. The second part is mainly about names. It deals with Dee’s new name and introduces Hakim-a-barber. It ends when the four of them sit down to eat. The next part includes the meal and Dee’s over-excitement about nearly everything, especially the dasher. The last part, finally, is about the quilts and Dee’s rejection.

For a story written in first person, Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" brings point of view to new heights. The way the story is written let

readers in on more than just one perception. The story is centered on an African-American family in the south set back in the 60's. A mother tells her story about how she and her two girls grow up in her home and how one of them, after being away for a while, comes back to show them how much she has changed.

Theme

The theme of the story can be divided in two aspects: the cultural confliction and the education.

First is the confliction between the white culture and the black culture. This is a time when white culture begins to crash the black culture which begins to melts in the former or the former begins to melts into the latter. The confliction between the two peoples is not only in culture but also in history such as the slavery time and the discrimination of racism. It concerns the way in which n individual understand his present life in relation to the traditions of his people and culture___ how should people treat culture and heritage. Dee is equally confused about the nature of her inheritage both from her immediate family and from the large black tradition. She hasn’t understood the real connotation of her national culture. It can keep the culture moving on just depend on several pictures or other simple old things. Maybe she just wants to protect the heritage in her own ways that just can not be admitted by the people around. Walker in this story wants to show that one’s culture and heritage

are represented by neither the possession of objects nor external appearances but by one’s lifestyle and attitude.

The second theme is the education. The divisive power of education, education has separated Dee from her family, but it has also separated Dee from a true sense of self. Both education and the lack of it have proven to be dangerous for the sisters. But just because of the white education, Dee has changed her attitude to the black culture; this is a tragedy for a nation. In our study of different cultures we should preserve and persistent our own culture. So education is an important factor in the development of a nation. After abandoning their own black culture, the black will finally lost in the crash and confliction of the white culture.

Conclusion

In this story Dee is the main clue; from her we can see the conflictions between the two peoples, the illusion of many modern young people. We should also remember that tradition should melt into our everyday life; tradition should be remembered from our inner heart not to stay in the surface. During the integration of different cultures we should protect ours. Walker shows in the story that culture is neither name changes nor speaking a foreign tongue or clothes change. Traditional culture and heritage are handed over from one generation to generation, not just take away old things. A person who really inherits his or her culture will regard it as a part of their life.

Everyday Use单词

vy ( adj. ) :like，characteristic of，or suggestive of waves波状的；有起伏的 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- groove ( n.) :a long，narrow furrow or hollow cut in a surface with a tool纹(道)；纹槽 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- elm ( adj.) : designating a fam ily(Ulmaceae)of trees growing largely in the N．Temperate Zone[植]榆科的 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- totter ( v.) :be unsteady on one's feet；stagger蹒跚而行 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------limousine ( n.) :any large luxurious sedan，esp. one driven by a chauffeur(配有司机的)高级轿车 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- sporty ( adj.) :characteristic of a sport or sporting m an运动员似的 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- tacky ( adj.) : untidy；neglected；unrefined；vulgar劣等的；破旧的；粗俗的 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- flannel ( n.) :a soft，lightweight，loosely woven woolen cloth with a slightly napped surface法兰绒 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- barley ( n.) :a cereal grass(Hordeum vulgare and related species)with dense，bearded spikes of flowers，each m ade up of three single—seeded spikelets大麦 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- lame (adj. ) :crippled；disabled；esp. having an injured leg or foot that m akes one limp瘸的；残废的 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- sidle ( v．) :m ove sideways，esp. in a shy or stealthy m anner(羞怯或偷偷地)侧身行走 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- shuffle ( n.) :a slow dragging walk拖着脚走 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- papery ( adj.) :thin，light，etc．1ike paper(在厚薄、质地等方面)像纸的 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- dingy (adj.) :dirty—colored；not bright or clean；grimy昏暗的，不明亮的；不干净的；无光泽的；弄脏了的 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------make—believe ( n.) :①n. pretense；feigning假装；虚假②adj. pretended；feigned；sham假装的；虚假的 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- dimwit ( n.) :[slang]a stupid person；simpleton[俚]蠢人，笨蛋，傻子 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------organdy ( n.) : very sheer，crisp cotton fabric used for dresses，curtains，etc．蝉翼纱；玻璃纱(一种细薄的透明布) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EverydayUseforyourgrandmama题

课后题及答案Everyday Use for your grandmama I . （1)In real life the mother was a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. （2)Dee like her mother to have a slender figure and a fair skin, glistening hair and a quick and witty tongue. 3)When she meets a strange white man, she always avoids looking him in the eye and is ready to go away. 4)Maggie is an innocent, timid and kind-hearted girl. 5) Because they were more seriously looked down upon by white men at that time, and they were not as awaken as they are today. 6)Because Dee doesn't like her friends to see the poor state her family is in, which she thinks is shameful. This tells us that Dee is somewhat a snob. Another instance to prove this is that she wants nice things. 7)Because it was old and stitched by hand instead of by machine. So that she could use them for decoration showing to the people she was associated with.

高级英语第七课课件第三版EverydayUseforYour

E v e r y d a y U s e f o r Y o u r G r a n d m a m a In order to understand this passage better, we can watch a movie---”The Color of Purple” 故事发生于1909年美国南部。未受过教育的黑人女孩西莉被继父强奸后，又被迫嫁给了粗鲁，凶狠的黑人男子，西莉称其为“先生”。在惊恐和胆怯中她开始了奴仆一般的痛苦生活。幸而有亲姐妹南蒂与之相伴，泪水中才多了一些欢乐。不久，这短暂的幸福也从西莉身边消失了。因为“先生”强奸南蒂不成，恼羞成怒地将南蒂赶了出去，姐妹二人被残酷的分开。年复一年，西莉在门口的邮筒中找寻南蒂的音讯，她始终期盼有一天能与南蒂再次重逢……(从中大家可以看到当时的整个社会的缩影，以及黑人生活的社会环境和社会地位，黑人女性的崛起和黑人女性的反抗精神也从有深刻得展现) Everyday Use for Your Grandmama Characters: Maggie: a shy,young woman made even more self-concious by scars she got in a house fire years ago. She hasn` t has much formal education but has learned traditional skills, such as quilting, from her familiy. Mama(Mrs johnson): the narrator of the story. She is a middle-aged or even older African American woman living with her younger daugter, Maggie. Athough poor, she is strong and independent, and takes great pride in her way of life. Dee(Wangero): Dee is Mama` s older daugher. She is attractive, well-educated and sophisticated. Moreover, she is selfish and she may even has caused the fire that disfigured （损毁···的外貌）her sister. Mama(Mrs johnson) called her Dee or Wangero. Asalamalakim: a young muslim man who accompanies Dee on her visit. Mama, unable to pronounce his name , called him “Hakim-a- Baber”. The muslim greeting he gives to her means “peace and happiness to you. ” This maybe ironic because their visit disturbs the peaceful lives of Maggie and Mama. The relationship between him and Dee is unknown. He may be a friend, a boyfriend, husband or spiritual adviser. Main content:The story begins when the mother and Maggie wait for Dee to come back goes back home with her lover. She asks for some traditional household appliances, especially two old quilts made by their grandma. The mother refuses. Instead, she sends the two quilts to Maggie. Dee leaves her eyes, two old quilts(百纳被) are the cultural heritage of blacks. Maggie inherits the black tradition and she should own them. The text: I. para1-2 The prelude: the three family members. II. Para3-16 The mother’s recollections / flashback:the three persons’relationships——mother; Maggie; Dee III. Para17- 82 The process of Dee going back home. Detailed study of the text: Paragraph 1---16: Paragraph1: 1,...Maggie and I made so clean and wavy...(wavy:波动起伏的。It shows that Maggie and Mama had made carefully preparations for the arrival of Dee.) 2,It is like a extended living room. (extended: enlarged, prolonged. Expressions with extend: extended family) Paragraph 2: 1,```homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs...(homely: 不好看的，不漂亮的，later we will know how she got the scar, so that is a suspense.) 2, she thinks her sister has held life always...to say to her.(she think that her sister has always had a firm control of her life and that she can always has what she want. )(课后习题paraphrase )

Everyday Use-Alice Walker(《祖母的日常用品》爱丽丝.沃克)原版辅导教学问题

Everyday Use Alice Walker I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house. Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: She will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister had held life always in the palm of one hand, that “no” is a word the world never learned to say to her. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 You?ve no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has “made it” is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage. (A pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other?s faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep; the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs. Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a dark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the stage, and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she had told me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 In real life 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. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a

美国经典小说 Everyday Use

Everyday Use by Alice Walker I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house. Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned to say to her. You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has "made it" is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage. (A pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other's faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs. Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a dark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers. In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls dur.ing the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue. But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head fumed in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. She

高级英语课件第三版everydayuseforyourgrandmama

Everyday Use for Your Grandmama In order to understand this passage better, we can watch a movie---”The Color of Purple” 故事发生于1909年美国南部。未受过教育的黑人女孩西莉被继父强奸后，又被迫嫁给了粗鲁，凶狠的黑人男子，西莉称其为“先生”。在惊恐和胆怯中她开始了奴仆一般的痛苦生活。幸而有亲姐妹南蒂与之相伴，泪水中才多了一些欢乐。不久，这短暂的幸福也从西莉身边消失了。因为“先生”强奸南蒂不成，恼羞成怒地将南蒂赶了出去，姐妹二人被残酷的分开。年复一年，西莉在门口的邮筒中找寻南蒂的音讯，她始终期盼有一天能与南蒂再次重逢……(从中大家可以看到当时的整个社会的缩影，以及黑人生活的社会环境和社会地位，黑人女性的崛起和黑人女性的反抗精神也从有深刻得展现) Everyday Use for Your Grandmama Characters: Maggie: a shy,young woman made even more self-concious by scars she got in a house fire years ago. She hasn` t has much formal education but has learned traditional skills, such as quilting, from her familiy. Mama(Mrs johnson): the narrator of the story. She is a middle-aged or even older African American woman living with her younger daugter, Maggie. Athough poor, she is strong and independent, and takes great pride in her way of life. Dee(Wangero):

高级英语课件第三版EverydayUseforYourGrandmama

高级英语课件第三版E v e r y d a y U s e f o r Y o u r G r a n d m a m a 文档编制序号：[KKIDT-LLE0828-LLETD298-POI08]

Everyday Use for Your Grandmama In order to understand this passage better, we can watch a movie---”The Color of Purple” 故事发生于1909年美国南部。未受过教育的黑人女孩西莉被继父强奸后，又被迫嫁给了粗鲁，凶狠的黑人男子，西莉称其为“先生”。在惊恐和胆怯中她开始了奴仆一般的痛苦生活。幸而有亲姐妹南蒂与之相伴，泪水中才多了一些欢乐。不久，这短暂的幸福也从西莉身边消失了。因为“先生”强奸南蒂不成，恼羞成怒地将南蒂赶了出去，姐妹二人被残酷的分开。年复一年，西莉在门口的邮筒中找寻南蒂的音讯，她始终期盼有一天能与南蒂再次重逢……(从中大家可以看到当时的整个社会的缩影，以及黑人生活的社会环境和社会地位，黑人女性的崛起和黑人女性的反抗精神也从有深刻得展现) Everyday Use for Your Grandmama Characters: Maggie: a shy,young woman made even more self-concious by scars she got in a house fire years ago. She hasn` t has much formal education but has learned traditional skills, such as quilting, from her familiy. Mama(Mrs johnson): the narrator of the story. She is a middle-aged or even older African American woman living with her younger daugter, Maggie. Athough poor, she is strong and independent, and takes great pride in her way of life. Dee(Wangero): Dee is Mama` s older daugher. She is attractive, well-educated and sophisticated. Moreover, she is selfish and she may even has caused the fire that disfigured （损毁···的外貌）her sister. Mama(Mrs johnson) called her Dee or Wangero. Asalamalakim: a young muslim man who accompanies Dee on her visit. Mama, unable to pronounce his name , called him “Hakim-a- Baber”. The muslim greeting he gives to her means “peace and happiness to you. ” This maybe ironic because their visit disturbs the peaceful lives of Maggie and Mama. The relationship between him and Dee is unknown. He may be a friend, a boyfriend, husband or spiritual adviser. Main content:The story begins when the mother and Maggie wait for Dee to come back goes back home with her lover. She asks for some traditional household appliances, especially two old quilts made by their grandma. The mother refuses. Instead, she sends the two quilts to Maggie. Dee leaves her eyes, two old quilts(百纳被) are the cultural heritage of blacks. Maggie inherits the black tradition and she should own them. The text: I. para1-2 The prelude: the three family members.

Everyday use 人物分析

Everyday use 人物分析 ?Mama -Acts as narrator of the story. She is also known as Mrs. Johnson. She is a middle-aged or older African-American woman living with her younger daughter, Maggie. Although poor, she is strong and independent as shown by how she interacts with her children, and takes great pride in her way of life. Her appearance is described as someone who is overweight, and someone who has a body that is more like a man's than a woman's. She has strong hands that are worn from a lifetime of work. ?母亲———美国黑人大众的代表 ?故事中的母亲强壮、能干、勤劳，没有受过多少教育，贫穷但是乐观，是典型的黑人妇女形象，代表着普通美国黑人大众。她对两个女儿的不同态度象征着美国黑人大众对文化运动和伤痛文化的态度。在文化面前，她是一个由迷茫转向清醒的黑人。她迷茫是因为她不知道如何调和与伤痛文化，以及文化运动的关系。她清醒是因为她看清了文化运动，真正理解了文化和遗产的含义，并最终为遗产的归属做了正确的选择。迪伊改了名字，母亲虽然失望，却也努力学着用新名叫她。母亲对黑人文化民族主义运动一无所知，却也努力配合并试图去了解她。但是当发现迪伊自私地要拿走家里的日用家当却不知道他们的历史和所凝结的情感时，母亲对迪伊这种抛弃传统，盲目寻根的举动彻底失望了。迪伊对文化遗产的肤浅认识也让她无法认同。她清醒了，文化运动给她带不来任何改变。对待麦姬，这位伤痛文化的象征，妈妈最初的态度是有意忽视和回避。一场象征奴隶制度的大火烧伤了麦姬，也给母亲留下了难以磨灭的伤痛。可怜的母女俩想相互温暖，却因为那段伤痛的历史而无法靠近。母亲很清楚麦姬的现状是历史留下的烙印，但是在伤痛文化面前，母亲显得很无助。她无法面对，无力驾驭她以及她的同胞们在美国奴隶制、种族隔离和种族歧视下所受的痛苦。所以选择了回避。 ?Maggie-The younger daughter who stays with Mama while Dee is away at school. Though described by her mother as unintelligent and unattractive, Maggie is a very innocent and humble character. She leads a simple life with her mother and has a traditionally Southern life. ?麦姬———美国黑人伤痛历史的象征 ?麦姬丑陋、自卑、笨拙、柔弱，这些特点也似乎象征着美国黑人的伤痛文化。象征着黑人伤痛文化的麦姬承受着三重痛苦。其一是奴隶制度带给她的身心痛苦。母亲是这样刻画她的：“你有没有看见过一个跛了腿的动物，比如说一只狗，被一个粗心莽撞的有钱买得起汽车的人压伤后，侧着身子向一个愚昧的对它表示关切的人走去时的样子？” “买得起汽车的人”其实就代表着对黑人实施压迫的白人。母亲暗指麦姬的伤是白人

Everyday Use人物分析

Character Analysis of the Everyday Use 王鹤澎 英语1201 20120290 2014/10/25

Character Analysis of the Everyday Use Tony Wang 20120290 Alice Walker, the splendid writer who main focused at American Women literature and black literature, wrote the Everyday Use at the beginning of the twentieth century. As one of the most famous short story of Alice Walker, Everyday Use represent the conflicts of three black women. And this story became classic work in American literature because of its profound ideological level and perfect artistic quality. There are three main character in the story. The Mama, a laborious woman; Dee, eldest daughter of Mama, who is beautiful, smart and well-educated; Maggie, in contrast with her sister, who is ugly, cowardice and self-abased. The writer used symbolize, metaphor and others rhetorical devices express the different attitudes of Negros when their culture was impact by a stronger one. Dee is the symbol of Black Culture Nationalism Activity. In the 1960s, some African-American started the Black Culture Nationalism Activity, which aimed at deny the unfair culture position and find Negro’s native culture. In the colonialist cultur e blacks become inferior nation, so Dee want to change this situation. She thought she love the everyday use of her family, changed her name which she thought was white imposed to her, worn the native clothes (in her mind) of black. However, she still cannot find her position in her mind. In fact, Dee was the woman who wandered between the first world and the third world. She want to enter the main world with her dignity and honor of Negros, but fell into the marsh of confuse. Faced with westerners, she cannot say a word or in accordance with her native culture. In the other hand, faced with her family, she had superiority complex strangely. Because she abandoned one important part of her native culture stage –Negros’ humiliating history. She was not grieved when the house, which was full of her fam ily’s suffering, burned into ash; she ignore the feeling of her younger sister Maggie, the symbol of African-American’s suffering; she even want to rap the qui lts which is the only thing Mama gave to Maggie. She thought she was finding the root of African culture, but what she did was deviate from her original intention. At all, Dee is only a perplexed woman infected by crowd mentality. She didn’t know that the right attitude to culture heritage is use it as everyday use and renew it continually. Poor Maggie is the youngest daughter of this complicated family. It seemed that all the pains were concentrated into her body. She endured three different kind of pain. The first is the pain caused by slavery system. The Mama used this kind of sentence to describe Maggie - “Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind of him?”. The rich man is the representation of white. Mama‘s meaning is that the scars o f Maggie were given by white, in other word, slavery system. The second pain is the ignorance and deny of Black Culture Nationalism Activity. The reader of Everyday Use can easily attracted by the big difference between Dee and Maggie. This difference can make readers realized the conflict of blacks’ nowadays wander and the heavy history. Some radical black nationalists feel shame because of the exist of “Maggies”, they want hide this history stage totally. This irresponsible action is no other than the murder of African-Americans’ native culture. The third pain was caused by Mama’s intentional dodge. Mama is one of the most classic Negro women, also the representation of common black people. This kind of dodge can be realized as the dodge of