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Characteristics can be described as the thing that makes a person who they are. Characteristics are how someone acts, how they feel, and how they identify. In Alice Walker’s short story, ‘Everyday Use’ the characteristics of each character could have been determined by the fire that happened a decade before the time of the story. For Dee, it enlightened her, for Maggie, it diminished her, for Mama it made her choose a side.
At the beginning of the story, we learn that there was a fire when Dee and Maggie were young that had burned down the house that they were living in. Dee had managed to get out of the fire unharmed, and while she is watching the house burn down in flames she is described as having a look of concentration. ‘Why don’t you dance around the ashes? I’d wanted to ask her. She hated the house that much’ (554).
The house that she hated so much burning down, was a symbol of what she could be. It was a symbol of freedom from the oppressed life that she had been living. Since then she went on to want shiny things in life like a nice education, nice clothes, shoes, and jewelry (554). The fire burning down the dingy house of her childhood, made her realize that she could win, she could have what she wanted out of life. For Maggie, it was the complete opposite. She did not come out of the fire unharmed; the fire had burned her arms and legs and left scars down her arms and legs (553). Maggie is described as a shy girl who is always in the background and quivering in fear.
She is described as not bright, with a shuffling walk, and eyes that never meet another’s. Maggie is a misfit, and the ways she acts, and talks are thanks to the fire that happened. Maggie could have possibly been a well-spoken, enlightened being, but the fire that scarred her along with the perfection of her older sister Dee, makes Maggie feel as if she is not important, that she is lesser, and in turn, acts in that way. For Mama the fire made her choose. It made her choose which one of her children to put on a pedestal. It made everything about Dee. Raising the money for Dee to go off to school, helping Dee acquire everything that she wanted (554). The fire also made her resentful of her children, because she had one child who was frozen and shocked and scared of the world and another who ONLY loved the world. Mama had been restricted to taking care of one daughter and having another daughter who only saw the faults in Mama’s way of life and never thanked her for all that she had done for her.
Work Cited
- Walker, Alice. “Mother to Son.” Literature: Craft and Voice, edited by Delbanco, Nicholas and Alan Cheuse. McGraw-Hill, 2012, p. 553-557
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