Everyday Use Critical Analysis Essay by Alice Walker

Introduction

American Life is full of challenges. Some challenges are successfully won by some individuals. In other instances, life’s everyday struggles discourage the average person. The Alice Walker masterpiece, Every Use, is classified as one of the United States modern literature’s masterpieces.

Alice Walker’s Masterpiece

The Alice Walker masterpiece scrutinizes the significance of race. The masterpiece scrutinizes the effect of gender on society. Lastly, Walker’s work of art delves into the intricacies of class. The story indicates a non-white person, Michael, observes, studies, and acknowledges the culture and temperaments of African American women. Michael observes the non-White female in their working-class environment (Bloom, 2009).

For people who have a white person’s image of the African American people’s culture, class, and gender, the Walker masterpiece is a good knowledge contributor. Most White persons who read the Walker book will learn relevant and convincing facts that African American people are human beings.  Nonwhites also have feelings. The book will persuade the White people to reduce their current discrimination acts on the African American people (Bloom, 2009).

Katharina Kirchmayer reiterated focuses on the frustration of one African American woman (Kirchmayer, 2010). The woman protagonist was blessed with two lovely daughters, Dee and Maggie. Dee asks her mother and sister to change her name from Dee to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. The move shows her revolting against the White people.  The story focuses on the refusal of Dee’s mother to give her a quilt. The mother refuses to give the quilt to her daughter because Dee disrespects her mother.

Instead, the mother decides to give the quilt to Maggie. Maggie is the mother’s favorite daughter. As a daughter, Maggie is able to brave the discriminating world to pursue her dreams. Maggie shows respect to her mother, unlike Dee. The story shows that disrespect exists in most families, even non-White. All families from different races are usually filled with sibling jealousy. Dee insists that her mother should give her the quilt, not to her sister. The story also describes vengeance in many families. Some parents punish their children for showing disrespect to the parents. Consequently, the mother refuses to grant Dee’s pleadings to give her the wedding quilt (Kirchmayer, 2010).

The story shows the importance of family and community tradition.  To the Dee family, getting married is a normal growing up the tradition. The tradition includes the use of the quilt. Dee feels that she must comply with her community’s quilt tradition. The tradition shows that Dee wants the quilt. However, tradition also shows that her mother had already promised to give the quilt to her other daughter, Maggie as her marriage gift. Mother does not want to break her promise to give expecting Maggie (Donnelly, 2009).

The Walker story evolved around the average family’s preferences. Most families prefer to maximize their scarce resources. The parents will pay for reasonable expenses. In the Walker story, Everyday Use, the mother and the community prefer spending for the school expenses of educationally bright children. For the less intelligent children, parents feel spending for their education would be a waste to time. In the story, the mother approves her daughter’s educational aspirations. The mother allows Maggie to continue her studies. The mother feels that Maggie will succeed in her studies, being an intelligent child (Brown, 2008).

Critical Opinions

Alice Walker’s masterpiece will benefit everyone. Everyone includes the White people, Brown People, Yellow people, African American people, and people of other races colors. The above essays show that people of all races and gender have similar feelings. The feelings include being happy, sad, hurt, and discourages. Everyone includes government leaders. Everyone also includes the police officers who may sometimes be charged for discriminatingly White officers who arrest persons belonging to other races.

Further, people of sectors will greatly benefit from reading Alice Walker’s book, Every Use. People will emote with the pains of the African American people’s feelings. Likewise, the essence of the Walker book will include how the people of other races, genders, and ages feel about being disadvantaged. The book will teach some of the abusive White people to be more respectful to people of other races, religions, genders, status in life.

Conclusion

Life has many types of hurdles. Some people overcome their hurdles. Other people fail to defeat the hardships. The Alice Walker book opens up discussions on racial and gender discrimination. Overwhelmingly, the Alice Walker masterpiece, Every Use, qualifies as one of the modern American literature’s literary masterpieces.

References:

Bloom, H. (2009). Alice Walker, New Edition. New York: Infobase Press.

Brown, L. (2008). Movements in Dignity. Florida: Florida State University Press.

Donnelly, M. (2009). Alice Walker: The Color Purple and Other Works. New York: Marshall Cavendish Press.

Kirchmayer, K. (2010). Sites of Resistance in Alice Walker. New York: Grin Verlag.