Okonkwo is a very big part of the story. But, he is portrayed as the
character he is because of his past. His father formed the person he is and
changed his perception about what his life should be like. His fathers name is
Unoka. He is described as person who is lazy and laidback. He never did any
hard labor and always borrowed from neighbors in order to feed his family. He
had a great many debts. When Okonkwo was bothered at school because his father
had no title, he realized then that he wanted to be everything his father was
not. His father died with no title to his name and was not respected by anyone
in the village. His own son or family didn’t respect him because they were on
the brink of poverty. Unoka went to see the village oracle and she even told
him that he was being lazy and it was pointless to plant seeds on soil that wouldn’t
produce results. Even after hearing that Unoka continued living the lifestyle
the way he did because he was good with words and managed to always have
someone around to borrow from. Okonkwo then continues his story on how seeing
everything his father put them through affected him a lot. His father was a
very compassionate and caring person and because Okonkwo wanted to hate
everything his father was, he became into a cold and very strict person with
his own family. But at least he got to overcome his fears of becoming his
father and he was considered wealthy and even had two titles and three wives,
which was considered being wealthy.
Mrs. Samuel
C. Newell is portrayed as an opportunistic mother who has no boundaries and
will go to whatever length it takes to get what she desires. In this story she
uses her daughter and to climb to the top of the social ladder. She assures
that her daughter marry a rich man so she gets the benefits of the marriage.
She is after the money. She wants everything for herself, “She used up
everything too quickly, friends, credit, influence, forbearance” (Wharton 214).
Her social status is her main priority. Hermy, her
daughter, is forced to marry into a family of wealth and Mrs. Newell justifies
it by saying “what’s the use of producing a daughter if she doesn’t contribute
to her parent’s financial & social advancement” (Wharton 218).
Posted by
michellex3
,
12:55 PM
Everyday Use by Alice Walker is a short
story about the relationship between a mother and her two daughters. In this story, that characters display
conflicts within themselves and with others. The main character I will focus on
will be Dee.
Dee shows a lot of dysfunctional behaviors
throughout the story. She has a lot of defenses because there are experiences
in her life that she wants to repress.
Mama points out how Dee shows denial and avoidance when she wrote to Mama
“no matter where we choose to live, she will manage to come see us. But she
will never bring her friends” (Walker 3). Denial is when “we believe that an
unpleasant situation doesn’t exist or an unpleasant event never occurred”
(Tyson 26). Avoidance is when “we stay away from people, places, or situations
that might stir up repressed experiences (Tyson 26) Dee shows denial because
she is trying to avoid, or forget her home and where she comes from.
Another example in which Dee shows avoidance
is an instant that Mama recalls; “I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered
Dee a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told they were
old-fashioned, out of style” (Walker 6). In this early moment she was already denying
her roots and her heritage but in the present tense of the story she was
begging for the quilts.
Dee also shows displacement with Maggie.
She tells her “ you ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie.
It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you’d
never know it” (Walker 7). Displacement is when “we take out our negative
feelings about one person on someone else so that we can relieve our pain or
anger without becoming aware of the real cause of our repressed feelings”
(Tyson 26). Dee tries to imply that Maggie doesn’t like the life she has as if
she envied hers (Dee’s) but its displacement because it is Dee who doesn’t like
her “old life” or her heritage. The family she comes from. At the same time
this shows her projecting. Which is “when we believe, without real cause, that
someone else feels the same way we feel or that someone else has the same
problem that we ourselves have but want to deny” (Tyson 26).
Finally Dee shows an insecure or unstable
sense of self because she contradicts herself in the story and you see how she
kind of unconsciously is searching for herself. When her mother calls her by
her name “Dee” she responds “ No, Mama. Not ‘Dee’, Wangero Leewanika Kamanjo!”
(Walker 4). Mama says, “What happened to Dee?” and Wangero says, “She’s dead. I
couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me”
(Walker 4). She changes her name because she is ashamed of it because its name
by which she is ‘oppressed’. The example
used previously in which she desires the quilt but didn’t in the past also
shows the contradiction she makes upon herself. She is ashamed of her heritage
but later appreciates it so much so that she wanted to take them from Maggie
telling Mama “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts! She’d probably be backward
enough to put them to everyday use” (Walker 6).
According to Tyson, “certain objects tend
to have symbolic meaning for most human beings, whether we are aware of this
meaning or not , and these symbols often show up in our dreams” (17). Dee shows the dream
symbol, Basements. Which according to
Tyson; “ basements are often associated with the unconscious as the place where
we repress unpleasant memories”(28). An example of this is shown in “out she
peeks next with a polaroid. She stoops
down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of
the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without making
sure the house is included”. The house is the base of where Wangero comes from
and it indeed is the place where she has the most repressed memories. Mama even
recalls a hate that she believed Dee had for the house when it was burning “And
Dee. I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out
of; a look of concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray
board of the house fall in toward the red hot brick chimney… She had hated the
house that much” (Walker 2).
Dee
proves to be a very complex character because she contradicts herself and she
is not sure of what she wants. One thing that is shown in the text is that she
was the kind of girl that never knew the words ‘no’. Dee has many dysfunctional
behaviors but the reader can see how throughout the stories she tries to find
herself and her own person by changing her lifestyle. If Dee never accomplishes
her personal goal on finding herself, then she will be living in cycle in which
she will always want more then what she already has and she will never be
happy. Wangero will not achieve self satisfaction judging by the way she treats
and thinks of her own family.
The Marxist theory entails that in
order to stop exploitation of the working class through capitalism, the working
class needs to rebel and gain power through a social revolution. Basically, the
Marxist theory is the struggle between the social classes. In Alice Walker’s
Everyday Use, Dee, Mama and Maggie show how Marxism is portrayed.
It is shown in he short story how
there is a struggle between social classes within the family. Dee or Wangero,
believes that her mother and sisters lifestyle is poor because they choose to
not to ‘overcome’ their ‘circumstances’. This shows Rugged Individualism, “which holds up for our admiration the
example of the individual who strikes out alone in pursuit of a goal not easily
achieved….” (p.59, Using Concepts from Marxist Theory). Wangero wanted so badly
to overcome her old life and she know expects that from her mother and sister.
The American Dream is also showed her
because Dee, actually did achieve and overcome her goal to leave behind her
old, poor life for the kind of lifestyle she wanted and that she felt she
deserved. Mama and Maggie show to be the lower working class in the Marxist
Theory in Dee’s eyes. They have to struggle just to maintain the lives they
have which isn’t one of the best. Dee is very competitive as well. From what
Mama tells, Dee has always tried to be better then everyone even though no one
tries to compete with her. She shows to be eager to overcome who she was or is.
Even though she achieves her goals she still wants more.
