Patchwork Of Heritage
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Patchwork of Heritage
Alice Walker’s early life was filled with challenges and achievements. Her college years proved her excellent writing skills accompanied with the creation of her own family. Later on, Walker’s career is taken to the next level and critics take a closer look at her writing. Particularly, Everyday Use is a crucial piece which can be evaluated to understand the authentic author’s past and emotions. Taking a close look into the life of Alice Walker will give you insight to the characters presented in Everyday Use. Furthermore, African American culture and the connection between mother and daughter are addressed and related to the life of Alice Walker.
On February 9th, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia Alice Walker was born into a world which she embraces with strength and ambition (Bloom, 10). Walker’s parents were tenant farmers who worked vigorously to support their eight children in a time when the life of a sharecropper was known as unsettled (Winchell, 2). One of her sisters described her as “a brilliant and studious girl” and Walker herself was quoted as “smugly declaring at two and a half, вЂ?I’m the prettiest.вЂ™Ð²Ð‚Ñœ (Winchell 4). However, her smug attitude was shaken at the age of eight when Walker was accidentally shot in the eye with a BB gun her brother was playing with (Bloom 10). Due to the fact that her parents were impoverished, they were unable to get her medical treatment and she developed scar tissue and lost sight in her right eye. As a result, Walker began feeling undesirable, soiled, and sometimes suicidal; she articulates that she, “daydreamed—not of fairy tales—but of falling on swords, of putting guns to my heart or head, or of slashing my wrists with a razor” (Winchell 15) Crippled with self-hate, Walker became socially isolated and began observing “human relationships and interactions” (Alice Walker) while using writing and reading to escape her reality. Additionally, she felt alienated for the very intelligence she began to value in herself due to her father’s disapproval of her intelligence because he felt knowledge led to his children more critical of him (Winchell 6). One of the few redeeming values found in her childhood was found in Walker’s mother’s beautiful garden. Walker shares that “Because of [Walker’s mother’s] creativity with her flowers, even my memories of poverty are seen through a screen of blooms, sunflowers, petunias, roses, dahliasвЂ¦Ð²Ð‚Ñœ (Winchell 4). Despite the negativity and early senses of alienation, Walker was able to find the positive and focus on it.
Academia enabled life to essentially blossom for Walker. She continued her education and became a loud voice in the activist world by learning how to reflect life in her writing. In 1961 she was given a scholarship to attend Spelman College for two years (Gale 6). Later on, she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College where she began writing more seriously and becoming more active in the civil rights movement. Walker published her first poetry book, Once (Gale 1); known as a collection of poetry and “an outpouring of creative energy in the week following her abortion in 1965.” She gradated that same year from Sarah Lawrence with her B.A. and decided to move to Mississippi to work as a teacher and activist in the civil rights movement (Gale 2). While writing four new pieces and pursuing political goals, she met and married a Jewish civil rights lawyer named Melvyn Leventhal (Gale 3). Only a few years later their daughter Rebecca was born (Bloom 10). Mr. and Mrs. Leventhal emerged as the only legally married interracial couple in Jacksonville, Mississippi and worked side-by-side in registering blacks to vote (Bloom 10). Later, in 1976, her marriage with Leventhal ends in divorce and the strong woman puts her writing career into full focus. (Gale 3)
Alice Walker finds her writer’s voice in addressing race, culture, gender, strong feminist opinions and African American possibilities. Meridian, her second novel published in 1976, was acknowledged by critics as the “best novel of the civil rights movement” (Gale 4, Bloom 11). This novel accepts the vision of free choice in African American women in a time “when the civil rights movement was struggling to unify itself and to affirm its gains against racism, Walker’s stance was controversial” (Bloom 11). Walker uses her experiences as a child and a young adult to reflect her viewpoint regarding controversial issues. For example, her relationship with her husband ending illustrated to her direct proof that women have free choice, and simultaneously it opened her eyes to the realization and argument that African American women should be no different. In addition, this novel takes risks while “speculating as to what black women will decide to do when they have a choice.” (Davis) Many personal choices that Walker made during her life can be related to the issues in her writing. She is known for “blurring the line between her life and her artwork” and that shows her writing is a reflection of self.
Everyday Use was a story seen as fundamental in drawing the reader’s attention to importance of sisterhood in the African American society. The story encompasses three characters; the narrator, Dee and Maggie, all of whom battle their own inner demons. First we have Maggie who is a nervous and seemingly hopeless character, disfigured due to a house fire which burned her arms and legs significantly. Maggie’s sister, Dee, is attractive, independent and the exact opposite of her mother and sister. However, Dee is cruel and manipulative and someone who holds high expectations in life. The narrator of the story, who we find to be the mother of the two girls, describes herself as a, “large, big-boned, rough woman,” (Walker 13-14) who is as strong as any man but not properly educated. The problem arises when Dee visits home to collect some items she has had her eye on.
Not only had Dee changed her family name, but she’d brought a man to meet her mother and sister. Dee suggests taking her mother’s family treasures, including the butter churn and an old quilt, which have been promised to Maggie. Both Maggie and mother see the items as cherished family heirlooms which should be a part of everyday use while Dee sees them as decorations which should sit around and appreciated from afar. After much disagreement, the mother