Essay About First-Person Narration And Little Concern

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When reading Alice Walkers “Everyday Use”, the main theme seems to be contentedness. The antagonist Dee is only content to please herself, which is evident in her demand for the quilts which had been promised to her sister Maggie. Likewise, she is happy only when she feels a deep bond to her roots in African culture, and is willing to change her name and personality so that she may feel a connection with those roots. The protagonist on the other hand is content to spend the rest of her life in the situation shes been in for probably the majority of it: work (she describes herself as having “man-working hands”). She, unlike her daughter Dee, has little concern for her familys heritage, seeing it more as something that can be useful to a person than as something that a person should base their whole life on. An example of this is her reaction to Dees argument that Maggie will “misuse” the quilts that have been in the family for generations by putting them to “everyday use”. The protagonist is unaffected by this argument, explaining that the quilts were made to be put to everyday use. The point-of-view of this story contributes to the readers understanding of the mentality of the protagonist. Written in first-person narration, the story presents the world of a low-class black woman and her perception of that world. She tells of her two daughters, Dee and Maggie. But because she is not omniscient of the thoughts of her daughters, the reader has only her word to go by concerning the daughters personalities. However, the narration seems to be reliable: because she exudes indifference throughout most of the story, there seems to be little reason to assume that her view of her daughters is overly biased. She speaks somewhat favorably of both daughters, but is also willing to point out their flaws. The first-person point-of-view contributes to the readers understanding of the protagonist in