A Critical Analysis of "Everyday Use"
            
             Alice Walker is a well-known woman author. Several of her stories show us the life and oppression of the Afro-American woman. "Everyday Use" is a tale of a daughter's return to the family and culture she has previously left behind. Walker combines plot, characters, and humorous fictional story to relate to the reader.
             The story begins with the mother sitting on the front porch, enjoying the clean yard, which Maggie and she have prepared for the arrival of Dee. The narrator then goes into a lengthy description of the characters.
             When her daughter, Dee, comes home with her black Muslim boyfriend, calling herself "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo," and tells her mother that she wants a quilted piece made by her grandmother because only she understands its tradition, the mother is forced to become a judge over the matter. She is sympathetic to the other daughter, Maggie who has stayed home and has been promised the quilt for her wedding. However, she is willing to give the quilt to her sister, telling her mother that she needs no evidence of tradition. Maggie says that she can remember her grandmother without the quilt. She receives the quilt, and the story ends with a satisfactory resolution.
             The characters play a chief role in the short story. The point of view is that of the mother. She is a large woman who has always done a man's work, and whose education stopped at the second grade. "Don't ask me why," she declares, "in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now." Though she sometimes fantasizes being on the Johnny Carson show, she laughs at her fantasies because she knows her true sense of worth.
             In addition, the other characters, Maggie and Dee play a crucial part in this short story. Although they are sisters, and both raised as poor Southern blacks, these two women seem to come from different worlds....