Everyday Use

This lesson plan uses Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” to introduce students to the terms flat, round, static, and dynamic as they pertain to literary characters. Students will draw inferences from key passages in the text, using characters’ dialogue and body language to make inferences about their conflicts, values, personal histories, and goals. Based on their findings, students will determine the extent to which each character is flat or round as well as static or dynamic. Upon completing this lesson, students will be able to analyze types of characterization more effectively.

“Everyday Use” was published in Walker’s first short story collection, In Love and Trouble, in 1973, ten years before she would publish the award-winning novel The Color Purple. Her writing draws universal themes from the particular circumstances of black women in America. “Everyday Use,” and In Love and Trouble as a whole, considers how the social turbulence of the late 1960s and early 1970s affected the lives of people navigating racial identity, racism, and sexism in that era. Readers will likely recognize these issues in the conflict between Mama and her older daughter, Dee.

Mama takes pride in hard work, perseverance, and her family’s legacy. Dee has been influenced by social movements that celebrate African identity and strive to attain equality for black Americans, particularly those living under Jim Crow laws. With her new identity and education, Dee acts condescendingly to her mother and her sister, Maggie. She views the family heirlooms in Mama’s home as potential decor instead of useful tools. Mama,
in turn, cannot understand why Dee would want to hang a quilt instead of using it for its intended purpose. When Mama insists that the quilts made by Grandma Dee have been promised to Maggie, Dee dismisses her mother and sister as unable to understand the importance of their heritage.

Along with the particular cultural conflicts of the era, “Everyday Use” also deals with such universal subjects as sibling rivalry and intergenerational conflict. Mama must decide how to respond to Dee when Dee rejects her given name, which has been passed on through their family. Then, Mama must choose which of her daughters is to inherit the treasured family quilts: the educated and opinionated Dee, or the shy and complacent Maggie.