The thematic richness of “Everyday Use” is made possible by the flexible, perceptive voice of the first-person narrator. It is the mother’s point of view that permits the reader’s understanding of both Dee and Maggie. Seen from a greater distance, both young women might seem stereotypical—one a smart but ruthless college girl, the other a sweet but ineffectual homebody. The mother’s close scrutiny redeems Dee and Maggie, as characters, from banality.

For example, Maggie’s shyness is explained in terms of the terrible fire she survived: “Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie’s arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them.” Ever since, “she has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle.” In Dee’s case, the reader learns that as she was growing up, the high demands she made of others tended to drive people away. She had few friends, and her one boyfriend “flew to marry a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant flashy people” after Dee “turned all her faultfinding power on him.” Her drive for a better life has cost Dee dearly, and her mother’s commentary reveals that Dee, too, has scars, though they are less visible than Maggie’s.

In addition to the skillful use of point of view, “Everyday Use” is enriched by Alice Walker’s development of symbols. In particular, the contested quilts become symbolic of the story’s theme; in a sense, they represent the past of the women in the family. Worked on by two generations, they contain bits of fabric from even earlier eras, including a scrap of a Civil War uniform worn by Great Grandpa Ezra. The debate over how the quilts should be treated—used or hung on the wall—summarizes the black woman’s dilemma about how to face the future. Can her life be seen as continuous with that of her ancestors? For Maggie, the answer is yes. Not only will she use the quilts, but also she will go on making more—she has learned the skill from Grandma Dee. For Dee, at least for the present, the answer is no. She would frame the quilts and hang them on the wall, distancing them from her present life and aspirations; to put them to everyday use would be to admit her status as a member of her old-fashioned family.

Walker uses several literary devices to examine the themes in the story and to give a voice to the poor and the uneducated.

Point of View

"Everyday Use" is told in first-person point of view. Mrs. Johnson, an uneducated woman, tells the story herself. The reader learns what she thinks about her two daughters, and her observations reveal her astute observations about life. This technique seeks to validate the experiences of an often oppressed group of people: lower-class, black women. By putting Mrs. Johnson at center stage, Walker confirms her value and importance in society. Mrs. Johnson has mixed emotions about her daughters. She likens Maggie's demeanor to ''a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car," and says that Dee's reading ''burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know." These conflicting feelings show the reader the complex nature of her thoughts and her ability to size up people when necessary. Her thoughts are compounded further by her fantasy of reuniting with Dee on a television talk...