Discussion
The humble Maggie, with her shuffling gait and habit of cringing in corners, is a caricature of a different type. However, although she lacks most of Dee's advantages, she is able to carry on family traditions and appreciate the true meaning of the things Grandma Dee left behind.
Although Dee is portrayed in a negative light in the story, Walker based both sisters on aspects of her own character. Like Maggie, she suffered an injury in childhood that left her partially disfigured and very self-conscious. Like Dee, she rose from poverty, got an education, explored her African tribal ancestry, and participated in the Civil Rights Movement. Walker also resembles the level-headed mother, who turns a slight incident into a story, and who is able to show Maggie's hidden worth while casting a sardonic gaze on the glamorous Dee.
Alice Walker grew up in the rural South, and "Everyday Use" pays homage to her sharecropper ancestors
Read more about this topic: Everyday Use
Famous quotes containing the word discussion:
“Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the battle field.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“There exist few things more tedious than a discussion of general ideas inflicted by author or reader upon a work of fiction.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“What chiefly distinguishes the daily press of the United States from the press of all other countries is not its lack of truthfulness or even its lack of dignity and honor, for these deficiencies are common to the newspapers everywhere, but its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion. It is, in the true sense, never well-informed.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)