Mrs. Johnson Mama The Core Issues of Each Characters in “Everyday Use” and the

Dee just wants to reaffirm her spot in the family. She just wants to own something that represents her family because she thinks that she deserves to have those quilts. The last core issue she has is fear of intimacy. This core issue is caused by her fear of abandonment. She shows fear of intimacy as her defense mechanism, but she does it continually. We can see it throughout her life in her emotionally distant relationships with her family and her friends. It is shown through Mama‟s description. Mama says, “She wrote me once that no matter where we „choose‟ to live, she will manage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends” p. 317. Here, besides Dee seems ashamed about her own family, this also shows that she actually never really has many friends. Maggie asks to Mama, “Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?” and Mama says , “She had a few” p. 317. By Maggie asking to her mother when Dee ever had any friends, it quite explains that Dee never really have friends, even though Mama says she had a few. This is because Dee does not let others to get too close to her emotionally and that is how she protects herself from people hurting her. Because of her lighter skin, achievements, and her differences, Dee is afraid that she will be abandoned by her family and whoever she gets close too. Because she is so different from her family, she is not close to them. We can see her relationship with her mother isn‟t as close as Maggie and her mother, the same thing goes to her relationship with Maggie as sisters. She shows this defense mechanism continually so in her case, fear of intimacy is her core issue. After her core issues are found, now the writer is going to answer the next question, how does she cope with it? The defense mechanism that Dee shows is denial. Dee also could completely avoid remembering where she comes from by keeping her upper-class lifestyle, never visiting her home. By doing that she can make a new image for herself and suppress her family and her past. And this is when Dee shows avoidance as her defense mechanism mechanisms as well . Mama explains, “I did not want to bring up how I had offered Dee Wangero a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told they were old- fashioned, out of style“p. 320. From those sentences we can see that Dee does not want the quilt when Mama gives it to her. She does not want it because she tries to avoid where she comes from and her family. Dee is also practicing avoidance by claiming that Dee is dead. “What happened to „Dee‟?” I wanted to know. “She is dead,” Wangero said. “I couldn‟t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me” p. 318 In Dees situation, her name is the thing that brings up repressed experiences and memories. Those are the fact that she is named after her ancestors, and she felt like they all oppressed her. Therefore, she showed avoidance by changing her name. Dee also shows displacement. She would say very harsh, mean things to Mama and especially Maggie. It is shown when Dee says that Maggie‟s brain is like an elephant‟s p. 319. Dee tries to convince and tell Maggie that she does not like her life but actually it was really Dee who does not like her own life and tries to deny it and also change it. When she argues with her mother, Dee turns to Maggie to kiss her and says, “You ought to try to make