Everyday Use: Mama Knows Best

Two cultural movements collide in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use.” Dee, who has renamed herself Werango, is inferred to be part of the Nation of Islam side of the civil rights movement. As she comes to the house, she is reunited with Mama, who represents the more traditional, hardworking, Christian African-American culture. Mama is not only the narrator in the story, but also an embodiment of the African-American spirit, and how it interacts with the political and intellectual fads that confront it.

At the beginning of the story, Mama and Maggie are waiting in the yard for Dee to come home. Mama is immediately established as a person who makes do with what she has and is content with it. She uses her yard, which is little more than exposed clay, as an extension of her home. “A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It’s like an extended living room” (Walker). Mama has rebuilt her house; while it is humble and small, it is none the less hers. She turns her back on it simply because she suspects that Dee wouldn’t appreciate it. Mama is a farmer, able to do as much as men, and is used to a lifestyle that demands long hours and hard work. She says proudly that she can break ice, slaughter animals, and work as hard as anyone else (Walker). While she is aware of her shortcomings, such as her lack of formal education, she does not let them prevent her from making a life for her and her children. And she even remembers when Dee, her rebellious older daughter who despised that lifestyle, once was part of it, too: she remembers Dee digging gum out of a tree, even if she looked like she had never felt hardship in her life (Walker).

She is also painfully aware that her daughter Dee does not approve of or appreciate her. The original house, which Mama inherited, burned down. Dee was glad to see it go (Walker). Dee would want Mama to be slimmer and smoother. While in school, Dee read to Mama and Maggie, even though neither wanted to be read to. “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” (Walker). Later on, as Dee leaves with her boyfriend, she remarks that it is a new day for African-Americans, but Mama and Maggie are too backward to see it or seize it. As a final display of being ashamed, Dee “put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and chin” (Walker). Dee may love Mama, but she expresses hatred towards her with her attitude, only treating her and Maggie kindly when they were able to raise enough money for Dee to go to college. As Mama waits for Dee to arrive, she waits with the knowledge that she is about to be used.

The first exchange between Mama and Dee features Mama calling Dee out for being fake. The author had already defined Dee as worldly, and when she makes her first appearance in the story, she does so as a college-educated fool. Mama asked Dee why she changed her name, and the reply was that she couldn’t bear to be named after “the people who oppressed” her (Walker). Mama automatically catches on to two things: that her daughter views her family as being oppressive and that her daughter has forgotten where she came from. Mama is the keeper of the family’s heritage, and she reminds Dee of this when she traces her name back through their ancestors. Dee/Werango has picked an “African-sounding” name to connect more with her heritage; Mama, by her ability to remind her of where her original name came from, is able to demonstrate that Dee has actually cut herself off from that heritage. Dee’s boyfriend Hakim is the same way. Mama knows real Black Muslims down the street, where Hakim states that while he agrees with them, they are not his “style” (Walker).

Mama’s reaction to Dee’s attempts to take pieces from the house and use them to decorate her and her man’s new home also demonstrates the clash between the authentic African-American experience and the faddish life Dee has chosen for herself.   Dee looks at the various family heirlooms—the butter churn, the dash, and the quilts—and sees decorations, a way to surround herself with authentic African-American-ness. Mama, though, as the keeper of the family’s heritage, seems offended. After all, she is still using these items, and she knows they were made to be used, and she knows that she’s in the right. Her refusal to give Dee the quilts, which have been promised to Maggie, reinforces this. “[S]omething hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did something I never done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero's hands and dumped them into Maggie's lap” (Walker). Mama has looked at her daughter, who had been used to being in style and refused her. She has preserved her heritage from those who would have turned it into something to gawk at. She has the courage to say no.

In “Everyday Use,” Mama represents the authentic African-American spirit. She refuses to let her and her daughter’s things be used to ape that spirit. She is unapologetic, she is tough, and she is sensible. Unlike Dee and Maggie, she is not bothered by what she isn’t. And as a result, when she has to take a stand to protect her heritage, she does. As Dee drives off with her boyfriend, Mama asks Maggie for a pinch of snuff, and they enjoy the sunset in the yard. She is an authentic spirit, and she loves it.

Work Cited

Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Perrine’s Story and Structure: An Introduction to Fiction. 13th ed. Ed. Thomas Arp and Greg Johnson. New York: Cengage, 2011. 108-116. Print.