The Women in Alice Walker's Short Story Everyday Use

One Family, Three Very Different Women: Mama, Dee and Maggie

Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” reminds me a lot of my family. No, I am not African-American, and I did not grow up in the rural South, but the characters of Mama, Dee, and Maggie remind me of my mom, me, and my sister. The three of us look alike, share some DNA, and have spent most of our lives in Simi Valley, but other than that, we have nothing in common. Mama, Dee, and Maggie are really the same way. While it would be expected for three closely related women to have much in common, Mama, Dee, and Maggie each have a very different life story, perspective on life, and concept of history. 

Although the three women are a nuclear family, their DNA may be all the three women have in common. Their life stories are very diverse. Mama grew up in a world where colored people were treated much differently than Maggie and Dee have experienced. When Mama was growing up, she had few civil liberties as a colored person. She mentions that “after second grade, the school was closed down,” (745) and because of this she is not educated and cannot read. Mama can do rough work, such as “kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man,“ with her “rough, man-working hands” (744). She is a very spiritual woman; she mentions that she sings church songs, and describes one of her actions in comparison to how she might act in church when the “spirit of God touches [her]” (749). Mama has a deep, rich personality, and although she has not lived an easy life, the rough life she has lived has turned her into a strong woman.