In Spite of It All: A Reading of Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"

Abstract

While Alice Walker's short story, "Everyday Use," is well-known, often anthologized, and often read, it has remained relatively untouched by the critics. And when it has been attended to, the readings generally polarize the characters of Mama and her youngest daughter, Maggie, who have stayed at home, against Dee, an older daughter, who left. The story is about what happens when Dee returns. While everyone recognizes a certain violence in Dee's return, and in her desire to take things away from that home -- things also like a quilt – that this wresting out of place of what most critics argue should stay "in place," like a quilt of "everyday use," might be positive, is not generally contemplated. My argument is that the possibility of putting the quilt of “everyday use” into circulation, and freeing it from being condemned to remain “in its place,” is what Dee’s rupture stimulates, and it also implies that all the characters will be able to circulate more freely rather than being kept, in their place, and subjected to everyday abuse.