Character Analysis of Dee Johnson in “everyday Use”Essay Preview: Character Analysis of Dee Johnson in “everyday Use”Report this essayAlice Walker crafts the character of Dee Johnson in the short story “Everyday Use” in a clever way. Starting from the first paragraph, Walker creates an image of Dee, who at first seems very shallow. Dee then becomes a more complex character as the story progresses. Blessed with both brains and beauty, Dee emerges as someone who is still struggling with her identity and heritage.
Dee is a flat character, who is described as arrogant and selfish. Through the eyes of Dee, one can see her egotistical nature. Dee is portrayed as a light-skinned black person who feels as though she is better than everyone else because her waist is small, her skin is light, she has a nice grade of hair, and she is somewhat educated. Although she may be educated when it comes to college, she is not educated with her family heritage. For the most part, Dee believes that she is too good for her family. She wrote to her mother saying “no matter where we choose to live, she [Dee] will manage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends” (162). From this quote, it is apparent that Dee is ashamed of her familys home.
In this story, Dee is completely unappreciative. One can get the feeling that the mother in the story had worked long and hard rearing her daughters, and has even gotten Dee into college somehow. Dee returns with her college education and new personality trying to preach to her mother and sister about what they are doing wrong. Plenty of times Dee spoke down to her mother and little sister, Maggie.
Dees physical beauty can be defined as one of her biggest assets. The fact that Maggie sees Dee “with a mixture of envy and awe” (160) lets the reader know that Dee has the more favorable appearance. The simplistic way in which Walker states that “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure,” (161) gives the reader the idea that Dees beauty has made it easier for her to be accepted outside her family in society, “her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that no is a word the world never learned to say to her,” (160). One is left with the impression that Dees appearance is above average. Walker plays on Dees physical beauty to contrast the homeliness of Maggie and her mother. Walker goes so far as to describe her feet as being more favorable as if God only wanted Dee to have pretty feet,
”Dees foot-size, and/or in the case of Maggie, makes her resemble a girl who is less than perfect, with the appearance of more inebriation and less grace.”(162). This does not mean, however, that Dees beauty is not evident in the character in the story. This is often because of dee’s inability to understand her physical appearance, or even when her feet do change, or because she herself, instead of being fully human, is being mistaken with the physical attributes of her feet, i.e., without any of the same physical attributes that Dee likes. For example, Maggie has no idea that she would have any one feet or hair, and will never be truly “normal” since it’s not like the character is physically “perfect”, and she’s just a woman. Dee’s body is merely a natural evolution of a mongrel’s, but because Dee and Maggie are actually being made to resemble each other, it is natural for us to assume that they are more closely related than we might think. And that is why Walker makes the assumption that Dees body-maturation can be due to the natural development of Dee (as described in the second chapter)—although she has yet to give enough information about the physical attributes of Dee that this is not to be taken literally.”(163). The conclusion of this section is that Dees beauty alone has the potential both to promote the kind of beauty dee can get—such as having the most “normal” self, such as a female of Dees beauty, to be her full and perfect selves, or having Dees body-maturation to influence the kind of beauty dee can get. (The reader can get both.)
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