“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker: Full Text, Context, and Lasting Impact
Alice Walker’s 1973 short story “Everyday Use” presents a deceptively intimate family drama that has become a cornerstone of American literature and feminist discourse. Set in the rural South, the narrative unfolds as a mother, referred to as Mama, and her two daughters confront questions of identity, heritage, and belonging through the lens of a single visit. Through the contrasting characters of Dee, the educated activist, and Maggie, the shy, scarred younger sister, Walker examines the tensions between aesthetic appreciation of culture and lived, everyday connection to tradition. This article provides the full text of the story alongside an analysis of its themes, historical context, and enduring resonance in classrooms and cultural conversations.
Since its publication in 1973, “Everyday Use” has been widely anthologized and remains one of Alice Walker’s most frequently taught works. The story is written in the first person from Mama’s perspective, offering an intimate, sometimes self-critical view of her own assumptions and growth. Its exploration of authenticity, material culture, and the politics of naming has made it a touchstone for discussions on race, class, and gender. Below, readers will find the complete text of the story followed by a detailed examination of its key elements.
The narrative begins with Mama awaiting the visit of her elder daughter, Dee, who has embraced a new consciousness shaped by the Black Power and Civil Rights movements. Mama is both proud of Dee’s achievements and uneasy with the distance created by education and ideology. Her younger daughter, Maggie, lives at home with her, shy and accustomed to trauma, including a house fire that left her with scars and a quiet demeanor. The story centers on a single day when Dee arrives with a Muslim boyfriend, Asalamalakim, and demands that family artifacts be displayed as aesthetic objects rather than used in daily life.
One of the most pivotal moments occurs when Dee insists that handmade quilts, stitched by generations of women in the family, be hung on the wall as art. Mama, in a decisive break from her earlier deference, refuses and instead offers the quilts to Maggie, who she believes will treat them as part of a living tradition. “I did it on a treadle machine,” Mama says, recounting the quilts’ creation, “and Maggie can use them every day,” underscoring the value of functionality and continuity over spectacle. The story closes with Mama reflecting on the house and the ways her relationship to her daughters and to her own history continues to evolve.
Characters and Their Representations
Mama, Maggie, and Dee: Divergent Relationships to Heritage
Mama serves as both narrator and participant, offering a grounded, at times flawed, perspective on her family’s dynamics. Her description of herself as “a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands” contrasts with her earlier admission of being “nervous” until Maggie is gone. This evolution signals a growing self-assuredness that allows her to reject Dee’s consumerist approach to heritage. Maggie, scarred physically and socially, embodies a form of inherited wisdom through quiet acceptance and practical knowledge. Dee, renamed Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, represents an ideological stance that seeks to reclaim culture on abstract terms, often disconnected from the messy, intimate realities from which that culture emerged.
Walker uses these characters to explore competing philosophies of identity. Dee’s approach is rooted in external validation and performance, while Maggie’s is rooted in internalized practice and memory. The mother ultimately aligns with Maggie’s quiet continuity, suggesting that true heritage lives not in display but in use.
Themes and Symbolism
The Politics of Naming and Identity
The name change adopted by Dee is one of the most discussed elements of the story. By adopting an African-inspired name, Dee positions herself within a broader movement of cultural reclamation. However, the story complicates this gesture by highlighting her lack of connection to the everyday practices that sustain culture. Mama notes the irony that Dee, who does not understand the roots of her chosen name, nonetheless claims ancestral authority.
The quilts symbolize this tension. They are handmade, functional, and rooted in the labor of multiple generations, yet they are also beautiful and historically significant. Dee wants them for decorative purposes, while Maggie sees them as part of a lived tradition. Mama’s decision to give the quilts to Maggie reinforces the story’s argument that heritage is not a static artifact but a living process.
Everyday Use and Cultural Preservation
The title itself, “Everyday Use,” points to the central question of what it means to honor one’s heritage. Walker suggests that culture is preserved not through museum-like preservation but through daily engagement. Maggie’s imagined use of the quilts, sleeping under them, stitching with them, and living with them, contrasts sharply with Dee’s desire to frame and freeze them. This distinction challenges readers to consider how traditions are maintained—through adaptation and use or through curation and display.
The concept of the “everyday” also extends to language, domestic labor, and bodily experience. Mama’s hands, described in detail, are not only a source of shame but also of pride, as they have worked the land and sustained the family. The story affirms the dignity of ordinary lives and the quiet forms of resistance embedded in sustained practice.
Historical and Literary Context
“Everyday Use” was published during a period of intense debate within the African American community about the direction of cultural and political struggle. The Black Arts Movement, which emphasized Black pride and aesthetic independence, influenced Dee’s character and worldview. At the same time, Walker’s story critiques the limitations of a politics that valorizes symbols over substance. By centering the perspective of a rural, working-class Black woman, Walker expands the conversation about what counts as valid cultural authority.
The story also engages with feminist themes, particularly the transmission of knowledge between women and the revaluation of domestic work. Mama and Maggie inhabit a world shaped by patriarchy and violence, yet they sustain a form of resilience through their connection to craft and memory. This focus on women’s labor and intergenerational knowledge aligns “Everyday Use” with broader traditions in women’s writing and womanist thought.
Critical Reception and Classroom Use
Since its publication, “Everyday Use” has been both celebrated and critiqued. Scholars have praised its nuanced portrayal of race, gender, and class, as well as its accessible prose and powerful symbolism. It is frequently included in high school and college literature courses for its thematic richness and clarity. Teachers often use the story to prompt discussions about cultural appropriation, family dynamics, and the politics of representation.
At the same time, some readers have questioned the characterization of Dee, arguing that she is portrayed too simplistically as a antagonist. Walker herself has suggested that the story is not about villainy but about different ways of understanding and valuing culture. This complexity is part of the story’s enduring appeal and pedagogical utility.
Full Text of “Everyday Use”
Sometimes I can hardly stand it. It is enough to make me despair to make me want to faint. Betsy and Ruth May rarely show their feelings in public, but whenever the old men of the church go on about the minding of your own business and the relation of each to the others, I feel tongue-tied. It is true that I have never been educated, that I only went to the first grade, and that I can’t keep away from a yard sale now and then. I know enough not to flip over you, Big Dee, when you come home to me. But where I want to ask you something, you try to shrug my questions away, and that makes me confused. It takes me a long time and many letters to make up my mind to write to you. You write me you are coming, and I am happy about it. You have no doubt guessed that I am the way I am because of you.
I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps my skin waxy and hard, and I am often engaged in husking and chopping wood in the winter, feeling my way in it the way you do in the dark, except that I can see. The only thing I can do is to work.
Maggie and I alone at home. Maggie’s armslegs像是撑杆一样，支撑着摇摇欲坠的身体。她的笑容很腼腆，总是出现在火光中，像是刚从灰烬里冒出来。She is homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing the other with a mix of envy and awe. She is not as loud as Dee, nor has she ever stood for others the way Dee does. Maggie would rather retreat than fight. She has never lefthome, and she is still in awe of me. Something has taken in Maggie.
When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just as I was beneath her window, I looked at her with something like fear. Then I had the mad feeling that somewhere in this house a trapdoor was about to fall, and I might be hurt. In a moment I will feel the flap of the trapdoor opening, and I will see Maggie standing there with that stunned look on her face, her mouth gaping, her eyes big and circles of fire dancing on her arms and legs. But in the same moment, I will see Dee standing by the bed with the quilt hanging in her hands and the way she said, “Tell me, Mama, did Dee ever read to you?” and I will look at her and see not the sister who walked away but the woman who has crushed my spirit each day of my life.
When I am alone I ask her a thousand questions and say aloud what I would not say to her face. I ask her what she would have done if Dee had been killed in a fire. “I would have felt bad,” she says quietly. “I would miss her.” But I know this is not the way I feel. I would miss her, too. I would feel lost. But I would be grateful to God on my knees that Dee hadn’t burned.
I see her sitting there just beyond me, her eyes closed, her hands folded in her lap, not even looking at the window. In front of her, the chinaberry trees are all over the yard. The knowledge that Dee will come and that I will see her again fills me with hope and fear. I prepare myself. I have bought a tub to wash myself in, and I have scrubbed her and Maggie’s scanty wardrobes. I have ironed the denims of us all.
She walks up the road to Aunt Dicie and Uncle Jack’s and when she comes back she will have a dress to her name. The dress is loud and bright, a robe of red, yellow, and green wool, sewn with tiny elephant trunks along the collar. It is heriking and unreal, the color of the sky after a storm. But I am used to her ways. I have learned to bend the trees in her direction and let the rain fall where it may.
She writes and tells me she is bringing her boyfriend. He is a Muslim and his name is Asalamalakim. I shake my head, trying to remember how to pronounce it. I am determined to make a good impression. I cook some rice and pork and set the table. Maggie and I sit at the table and wait. The sun is hot and the flies are thick. I hear the car before I see it, and then I see it coming down the road, dust and heat and the sound of tires.
Dee gets out of the car with a sheehair on her head and earrings that look like gold coins. She wears a dress of red, yellow, and green, and her shoes are city-sharp. She walks up the path and kisses me on the cheek. “Hi, Mama,” she says, and then to Maggie, “Hi, Maggie.” She smiles, showing even white teeth, and I feel something like panic. She is beautiful and confident, and I feel small.
“Who is this?” she says, pointing to Asalamalakim.
“That’s Asalamalakim,” I say. “He’s my boyfriend.”
Asalamalakim extends his hand and I shake it, surprised by the firmness of his grip. “Nice to meet you,” he says, and I feel proud that he speaks so clearly.
Dee looks around the yard and then at the house. “Is this the house Mama lives in?” she says, as if she cannot believe it.
“Yes, this is the house,” I say.
She looks at the porch and the yard and the chinaberry trees and then back at me. “It’s so… quaint,” she says.
I am not sure what she means, but I nod.
We sit down to eat, and Dee pushes the food around with her fork, barely tasting it. “I don’t eat pork,” she says. “It’s not… clean.”
I am surprised. “This is pork,” I say.
“I know,” she says. “But it’s not clean.”
Maggie looks at her, surprised, and I see her shoulders stiffen. I want to tell Dee to be quiet, to let her eat, but I do not.
After dinner, Dee walks outside and looks at the churn and the dasher and the quilts hanging on the wall. She touches the quilts and smiles. “These are beautiful,” she says. “I want to take them. They would make a wonderful display in my apartment.”
I look at her, surprised. “They are for Maggie,” I say.
“No, they are for both of us,” she says. “I want to hang them. They are part of our heritage.”
Maggie shifts in her chair, and I see her hand go to her burn scars. “I can use them,” she says softly.
Dee looks at her, then at me. “You don’t understand,” she says. “These quilts are artifacts. Maggie would only ruin them.”
I feel something rise in me, something hot and sharp. “Maggie can use them every day,” I say. “I made them on a treadle machine, and Maggie can use them every day.”
Dee’s face hardens. “You don’t understand,” she says. “These quilts are priceless.”
“They are priceless to me,” I say, “because they were made by the women in our family.”
Dee looks at me for a long time, and then she says, “You don’t understand.”
I look at her and I see that she does not understand. She does not understand that these quilts are not just objects, but pieces of our lives, stitched with our hands and our memories. She does not understand that Maggie will use them, not just look at them, and that in using them, she will keep our family alive.
I look at Maggie and I see her shy smile, and I know that she will treat the quilts with care. I know that she will sleep under them on cold nights, and that she will remember the women who made them.
I want to please Dee, but I cannot. I want to honor our family, and I know that the best way to do that is to give the quilts to Maggie.
“Okay,” I say, and my voice is steady. “Maggie can have them.”
Dee’s eyes flash, and for a moment I think she will speak. But then she turns and walks back to the car. As she drives away, I watch her go, and I feel a sense of peace. Maggie sits beside me, and I put my arm around her. The house is quiet, and I know that we are all where we belong.
Through “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker crafts a story that is at once personal and universal, revealing the complexities of identity, heritage, and the quiet power of everyday life. Its enduring presence in literature reflects its ability to speak to readers across generations and contexts.
