Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Characterization Paper: Everyday Use

Tzivia Halperin
AP Lit
Mr. Gallagher

Characterization in Everyday Use

Everyday Use, a short story written by Alice Walker, details the schism that forms between two sisters- Dee (Wangero) and Maggie Johnson. The former is emphasized as more consumeristic and self-seeking, the latter, introverted and submissive. Dee’s return to her childhood home, and her demand for family quilts, ultimately causes her mother to lash out and give the quilts to Maggie. The conflict over the quilt merely aids in Walker’s juxtaposition of the superficial and genuine means of expressing ones heritage by contrasting the two sisters’ personalities and motivations for the quilt, emphasizing that filial history should be actively appreciated not simply analyzed at a distance.

Walker creates the two siblings, Maggie and Dee Johnson, as flat characters, emphasizing one distinct characteristic about each. What she produces is two contrasting caricatures. Maggie Johnson is detailed as being quiet, demure, submissive, and introverted. These traits become especially pronounced following a fire that permanently disfigured her skin. "She will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs," her mother described (Walker 91). Her mother notes that Maggie is also "homely" especially in comparison to her sister, Dee. Unlike Dee, Maggie does not leave home following the fire but remains with her mother learning many of the Ms. Johnson’s skills- "man’s jobs," including milking the cows (Walker 92). Living at home allows Maggie to become more acquainted with the family history and therefore more cognizant of it. Items that Dee hopes to raid from the family home in order to display in her own, holds personal meaning of ancestry for Maggie. "‘Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dash, said Maggie so low you almost couldn’t hear her. ‘His name was Henry, but they called him Stash,’" in response to Dee’s husband’s query about its origins (Walker 95). Dee herself can no more answer the question than her husband, in spite of the fact that it involves her own family. From such a rich description of Maggie, one can discern her separation from her sibling Dee.

Dee is described as very much the antithesis of Maggie, while also a flat character. Unlike Maggie, Dee’s most prevalent attributes are her conceit, self-indulgence, yet also refinement. Dee is painted in an entirely different light than Maggie- much more negatively. Following the fire that eradicates the Johnson household, they "raised the money, the church and [Ms. Johnson], to send her Augusta to school" (Walker 92). Having left home, Dee’s path diverges greatly from the rest of the family; she covets both education and material objects. Even before leaving home and creating her comfortable existence, Dee develops an air of condescension to the rest of her family:
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 didn’t necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand." (Walker 92)
From an early age, Dee’s selfish habits are indulged, thus her return home is marked by her characteristically raiding the home in search of items to display in her own home. In a superficial expression of "heritage," Dee changes her name to Wangero and ironically greeted her family in Swahili- "wa-su-zo-Tean-o," yet, had to sound it out syllabically (Walker 93). Her heritage becomes another expression of style and sophistication for Dee, emphasized by the fact that she does not even comprehend her own filial history. The quilt became the point of greatest conflict between an individual who appreciates her history and an individual who feigns appreciation. Dee ironically exclaims in her defense, "‘Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!…She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use’" (Walker 96).

The two flat characters of Maggie and Dee Johnson are used to build the two different perspectives one could have in relation to history and heritage. They are caricatures with only one main characteristic highlighted. Their mother however, experiences change throughout the course of the story and it is her role as a dynamic character that allowed Walker to demonstrate the folly of Dee’s expression of heritage. Ms. Johnson herself even concedes that Dee "has held life always in the palm of one hand, that ‘no’ is a word the world never learned to say to her," (Walker 91), even at the expense of her other daughter Maggie. Thus, when the issue of the quilts arose and Dee demands them of their mother, Maggie is resigned to give them up. "‘She can have them Mama,’ she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her," (Walker 97). Even though Maggie is promised the quilts for use and thus nostalgia for Grandma Dee, while Dee wants them because they were "priceless," everyone including Maggie and Dee expected Ms. Johnson to agree to Dee’s demands (Walker 96). However, Ms. Johnson has an epiphany, realizing that it was Maggie who truly deserved the quilts over Dee- and she "snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero’s hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap," (Walker 97). Ms. Johnson’s decision to no longer indulge Dee’s selfishness as she would have in the past, affirms the idea that heritage is something to be actively and genuinely involved in not simply observed at a distance.

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