never takes a shot without making sure the house is included p. 318.
She is able to show that she is well educated by degrading her own family with these pictures. When she takes a shot of her mother and sister, she also
makes sure to include the livestock as well as the entire house. She treats her family and her house as if they’re something unique, out of style and
unfamiliar for her. When she is inside, she goes around picking out items such as butter churn, quilts, and other household luxuries she wants to take back
with her. She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner
where the churn stood, and the milk in it clabber by now. She looked at the churn and looked at it.
“This churn top is what I need p. 319
She wants to take back the churn with her and use it as a centerpiece for the alcove table. As she taking the churn top and asking about Uncle Buddy
who whittled the churn out of a tree, she says, “And I want the dasher too. I’ll think of something artistic to do with the dasher” p. 319. She wants to take
the dasher that Aunt Dee’s first husband had whittled. And then after dinner Dee went to her mother’s bedroom.
After dinner Dee Wangero went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in
the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big
Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them p. 320.
From this action Dee wants to take the quilts too. By taking her mother’s butter churn, the dasher, and the quilts, she without any remorse, leaves her
family without quilts to keep them warm and without a churn to make butter.
I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of, a look of concentration on her face as she
watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot brick chimney. Why do not you do a
dance around the ashes? I’d wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much p. 316.
By Mama’s words, the writer can sense that the burning of their house brought happiness to Dee because she had hated the house. She just standing
off under the tree as she watched the house burnt to the ground with a look of concentration on her face instead of trying to help or sad. And when she off at
college years later, she writes a letter to Mama and Maggie telling that she will visit them no matter where they choose to live, but she will never bring any of
her friends. And as Mama and Maggie read the letter, Maggie asks, “Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?” By seeing Mama’s statement about
Dee’s reaction when the house burned down and Maggie’s question, Dee can be characterized as egotistical or selfish. She is excessively conceited or
absorbed in herself because she only had a few friends which are furtive boys in pink shirts and nervous girls who never laughed. “Impressed with her they
worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye. She read to them” p. 317.
Another proof that she is arrogant is when reads to her mother and sister. She looks down on her surroundings. Mama explains:
She used to read to us without pity, forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped
and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we did
not necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious ways she read, to shove us away at just the moment,
like dimwits, we seemed about to understand p. 316
Dee forces all her education to her mother and sister, when she knows they are not educated like her. She acts like she is better than others, showing her
arrogance.
3. Maggie
Maggie is Mrs. Johnson’s Mama youngest daughter. She is characterized by her past life, conversation of others, her speech, and Maggie as seen by
another. Maggie as seen by another. She is described as an unattractive and shy
person. We can see it from Mama’s sentence, “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” p. 315. The burn scars down her arms and legs make her look
rather unattractive. And the way she walks shows that she is shy. This can be seen from Mama’s another explanation:
Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up
to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin
on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle p. 316
The dialogue above shows that Maggie is a shy person. We can see it from the way she walks as her chin on her chest, her eyes on ground, and how she
shuffles her feet. That is just how a shy person generally walks. Another proof that she is a shy person is when she wears a pink skirt and red blouse, and asks
what her mother thinks about her look, she stands there but almost her mother cannot see her. “Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin body enveloped
in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she is there, almost hidden by the door” p. 316. This also shows that Maggie has a low self confidence. Then
when Mama admits that she never had an education herself, she also says that sometimes Maggie reads to her. “Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She
stumbles along good- naturedly but cant see well. She knows she is not bright”
p. 316. From that, we can see that Maggie is uneducated and not as smart as Dee.
Maggie is characterized by her past life. As Mama tells about the house fire that happened around ten or twelve years ago, “That is the way my
Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground” p. 316.
From that description, we can conclude that the accident shapes Maggie’s shy and low self confident characteristics. The house fire also leaves some burn
scars down her arms and legs that make her become more low self confident and feel ashamed. Mama explains this in the beginning of the story, “Maggie
will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the b
urn scars down her arms and legs” p. 315 If we analyze the emotional qualities of Maggie by applying the theory of
Abrams, the qualities are also expressed in what she does or her actions. For example, when Hakim-a-barber asks if Uncle Buddy whittled the dasher that
Dee wants, Maggie answers with a very low voice. Aunt Dees first husband
whittled the dash, said Maggie so low you almost couldnt hear her” p. 319. From that dialogue, Maggie’s action of talking in a very low voice shows that
she is quiet and withdrawn. She is hardly a presence even when she does manage to utter a complete sentence.
Despite her weaknesses, Maggie has some significant strength. This can be explained by looking at the conversation of others, which is the conversation
between Mama and Dee. When Dee thinks that Maggie cannot appreciate the quilts and they would be in rags less than five years, Mama replies, “She can
always make some more, Maggie knows how to quilt” p. 320. From Mama’s statement that Maggie knows how to quilt, we can say that Maggie is
respectful especially towards her family heritage. Even though she hasnt been able to go away to school and learn the things her sister has, she has learned to
quilt. She shows her respect by learning how to quilt. Her ability to quilt is something she shares with her ancestors, which connects her strongly to them.
The last, Maggie is characterized by her speech. She is characterized as a nice person who always back down, and always give everything when Dee
asks for. Even when Dee asks for the quilts which Mama promised to give to Maggie when she marries to John Thomas, she says, “She can have them,
Mama” p. 321. She let her sister to keep those quilts. She also seems also to have a true, un-superficial sense of heritage when
she says, “I can „member Grandma Dee without the quilts” p. 321. This statement, again, shows that
she has a great respect towards her ancestors and heritage.
B. The Core Issues of Each Characters in “Everyday Use” and the
Defense Mechanisms that are Reflected on Each Character to Cope with those Issues
Brothers and Sisters, when they are raised by the same mother and grew up together as siblings usually they have things in common. But this is not the
situation that happens in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”
.
These two sisters, Maggie and Dee, are raised by the same mother, Mrs. Johnson, and grew up as
siblings indeed, but from their personalities and the way they think, they are really different.
As human beings, we all have to deal with a lot of things with different kinds of problems. Tyson explains in his book
Learning for A Diverse World
that everyone has “at least one core issue…” 2001:16. In this short story by Alice Walker,
“Everyday Use”
,
Mama, Maggie and Dee show psychoanalysis problems that T
yson talks about in “Using Concepts from Psychoanalytic Theory to Understand Literature”. Tyson says that psychoanalysis has to deal
with core issues, which includes, Low Self Esteem, Insecure or Unstable Sense of Self and the defense mechanisms they face which are Avoidance,
Denial, and Displacement. In this story these three main characters are going through some sort of emotional problems.
1. Mrs. Johnson Mama
Mama’s core issue seems to be low self-esteem. It is shown when she says she does not look
at people’s eyes when she talks. Mama says:
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 turned in which ever way is
farthest from them p. 315
From this description we can see that Mama thinks that she is not as worthy as other people, therefore, she will not eye them directly when she
talks. Mama knows that she is dark and heavy. She also tells us that she is
uneducated. The school she attended in the second grade closes down. Another core issue of Mama is fear of abandonment. Mama has the fear
that Dee might leave her someday. It is shown when Mama agrees to call Dee by Wangero.
“How do you pronounce this name?” I asked. “You do not have to call me by it if you do not want to,”
said Wangero. “Why shouldn’t I? I asked. “If that is what you want us to
call you, we’ll call you.” “I know it might sound awkward at first,” said Wangero.
“I’ll get used to it,” I said. “Ream it out again” p. 318 From the conversation between Mama and Dee above, we can see that
Mama agrees to call Dee by Wangero and wants to learn how to pronounce it just for the sake of her daughter. She is afraid that Dee might leave her if she
does not want to call her by it so she tries to respect Dee’s choice. The fact
that Dee hates their old house, and the way Dee treats Mama, makes Mama
