The summary of everyday use by Alice walker
everyday use人物分析兼论其主题
everyday use人物分析兼论其主题《EverydayUse》是美国作家居伦米拉姆惠特曼（AliceWalker）于1973年发表的一篇小说，主要讲述了一个低收入乡村非洲裔美国家庭之间的非洲文化继承争议，也表达了作者对传统非洲文化的认可和尊重。
主要人物分析1.拉（Maggie）：米拉是小说的主人公，也是家庭中最小的孩子，由于生活条件的限制，没有接受过正规的教育，外表粗犷，性格简单，但是对家里的传统文化有着强烈的执着。
米拉有着自己良好的文化认知，理解着自家的传统文化价值，以自己家里的织物来保护和传承自家的文化遗产。
2.丽安（Mary Ann）：玛丽安是米拉的姐姐，也是家里最大的孩子，她曾经就读过大学，想要摆脱贫困，从而拥有更好的生活。
她比米拉更加注重审美，认为传统文化只是一种礼仪，应该只在特定的场合里展示，而不是用于日常生活。
3.安娜（Mama）：玛安娜是小说中的母亲，她友善善良，关心孩子们，有着较强的责任感。
作为家里最重要的人，她在米拉和玛丽安之间寻求平衡，希望两个孩子都能得到成就，又能继承家族的文化传统。
4.安娜（Dee）：戴安娜是米拉和玛丽安的姐姐，比两个孩子大了很多年的大姐，曾经就读过大学，拥有较强的文化认知，对家族的传统文化认可有限，她认为这些传统文化太过于粗俗，不够美观，最后把它们拿来当做收藏品展示在家里。
人物特征看，米拉在家庭有著最深厚的文化认知，追求著文化的承和煌；而玛丽安家族文化有度反感，希望能摆脱贫困，过上更好的生活。
玛安娜在米拉和玛丽安之，她既知道家族文化的重要性，也理解玛丽安改善生活的追求，於双方的力求公平，人都能得到尊重。
戴安娜於家族的传统文化有限的认可，而她想要把它们拿当做收藏品展示在家里，展示自家文化的象征性，也是於家族文化的致敬。
最，《Everyday Use》的主题是“文化继承”。
作者用家族中三名不同文化认知水平的主要人物来表现这个主题，讲述了家庭中个孩子在文化继承上的分歧。
美国经典小说 Everyday Use
Everyday Useby Alice WalkerI will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree andwait for the breezes that never come inside the house.Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held lifealways in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned tosay to her.You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has "made it" is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weaklyfrom backstage. (A pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parentand child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other's faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table totell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs.Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a dark and soft-seated limousine I am usheredinto a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told me once that shethinks orchids are tacky flowers.In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls dur.ing the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog.One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. But of courseall this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up withmy quick and witty tongue.But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head fumed in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. Shewould always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature. "How do I look, Mama?" Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin body enveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she's there, almost hidden by the door."Come out into the yard," I say.Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other houseto the ground.Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She's a woman now, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie's arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. 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 thelast dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot brick chimney. Why don't you do a dance around the ashes? I'd wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river ofmake-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she'd made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was.I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't ask my why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can't see well. She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passes her by. She will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I'll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself.Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a tune. I was always better at a man's job. I used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in'49. Cows are soothing and slow and don't bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way.I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just likethe one that burned, except the roof is tin; they don't make shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding theshutters up on the outside. This house is in a pasture, too, like the other one.No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down. She wrote me once thatno matter where we "choose" to live, she will manage to come see us. But shewill never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me, "Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?"She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school. Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubblesin lye. She read to them.When she was courting Jimmy T she didn't have much time to pay to us, but turned all her faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry a cheap city girl from afamily of ignorant flashy people. She hardly had time to recompose herself.When she comes I will meet—but there they are!Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stayher with my hand. "Come back here, " I say. And she stops and tries to dig awell in the sand with her toe.It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the firstglimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were alwaysneat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style. From theother side of the car comes a short, stocky man. Hair is all over his head afoot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suckin her breath. "Uhnnnh, " is what it sounds like. Like when you see thewriggling end of a snake just in front of your foot on the road. "Uhnnnh."Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud ithurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light ofthe sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out.Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out ofher armpits. The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. Ihear Maggie go "Uhnnnh" again. It is her sister's hair. It stands straight uplike the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears."Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!" she says, coming on in that gliding way the dress makes her move. The short stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with "Asalamalakim, my mother and sister!" He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right up against the back of my chair. I feel her tremblingthere and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin."Don't get up," says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a push. You cansee me trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of mesitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without mak' ing sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car, and comes up and kisses me on the forehead.Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie's hand. Maggie's hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and shekeeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake handsbut wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don't know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie."Well," I say. "Dee.""No, Mama," she says. "Not 'Dee,' Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!""What happened to 'Dee'?" I wanted to know."She's dead," Wangero said. "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named afterthe people who oppress me.""You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie," I said. Dicie ismy sister. She named Dee. We called her "Big Dee" after Dee was born."But who was she named after?" asked Wangero."I guess after Grandma Dee," I said."And who was she named after?" asked Wangero."Her mother," I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. "That's about as farback as I can trace it," I said. Though, in fact, I probably could have carriedit back beyond the Civil War through the branches."Well," said Asalamalakim, "there you are.""Uhnnnh," I heard Maggie say."There I was not," I said, "before 'Dicie' cropped up in our family, so whyshould I try to trace it that far back?"He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head. "How do you pronounce this name?" I asked."You don't have to call me by it if you don't want to," said Wangero."Why shouldn't 1?" I asked. "If that's what you want us to call you, we'll call you.""I know it might sound awkward at first," said Wangero."I'll get used to it," I said. "Ream it out again."Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over it two or three times he told meto just call him Hakim.a.barber. I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but Ididn't really think he was, so I didn't ask."You must belong to those beef-cattle peoples down the road," I said. They said "Asalamalakim" when they met you, too, but they didn't shake hands. Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt.lick shelters,throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to seethe sight.Hakim-a-barber said, "I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style." (They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.)We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn't eat collards and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and com bread, the greens and everything else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes.Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn't effort to buy chairs."Oh, Mama!" she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. "I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints," she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's butter dish. "That's it!" she said. "I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have." She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it crabber by now.She looked at the churn and looked at it."This churn top is what I need," she said. "Didn't Uncle Buddy whittle it out ofa tree you all used to have?""Yes," I said."Un-huh," she said happily. "And I want the dasher, too.""Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?" asked the barber.Dee (Wangero) looked up at me."Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash," said Maggie so low you almost couldn't hear her. "His name was Henry, but they called him Stash.""Maggie's brain is like an elephant's," Wangero said, laughing. "I can use the chute top as a centerpiece for the alcove table," she said, sliding a plate overthe chute, "and I'll think of something artistic to do with the dasher."When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my hands. You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. It was beautiful light yellow wood, from a treethat grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived.After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt ftames on the ftont porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Stat pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jattell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny fadedblue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great GrandpaEzra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War." Mama," Wangro said sweet as a bird. "Can I have these old quilts?"I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed."Why don't you take one or two of the others?" I asked. "These old things wasjust done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died.""No," said Wangero. "I don't want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine.""That'll make them last better," I said."That's not the point," said Wangero. "These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imagine!" She held the quilts securely in her arms, stroking them."Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come from old clothes her mother handed down to her," I said, moving up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that I couldn't reach the quilts. They already belonged toher."Imagine!" she breathed again, clutching them closely to her bosom."The truth is," I said, "I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas."She gasped like a bee had stung her."Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.""I reckon she would," I said. "God knows I been saving 'em for long enough with nobody using 'em. I hope she will!" I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told they were old~fashioned, out of style."But they're priceless!" she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. "Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!""She can always make some more," I said. "Maggie knows how to quilt."Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. "You just will not under.stand. Thepoint is these quilts, these quilts!""Well," I said, stumped. "What would you do with them7""Hang them," she said. As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts. Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other."She can have them, Mama," she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. "I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts."I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hiddenin the folds of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear butshe wasn't mad at her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work.When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did something I never done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts outof Miss Wangero's hands and dumped them into Maggie's lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open."Take one or two of the others," I said to Dee.But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber."You just don't understand," she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car. "What don't I understand?" I wanted to know."Your heritage," she said, And then she turned to Maggie, kissed her, and said, "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." She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and chin.Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real smile, not scared. After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed.。
高级英语课文EverydayUse
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Detailed Study of the Text
• Section 1 of part I
• The setting: yard, house
• Maggie: appearance
• Comparison with her sister: eying her with a mixture of envy and awe
were The Color Purple which won
the Pulitzer Prize of Fiction （普 利策小说奖） and The American Book Award（美国图书奖）. In
1985, the Color Purple was made into a movie which won great fame.
designing and building the new
system.
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II. Detailed study of the text:
• 6. totter: to move in an unsteady way from side to side as if about to fall, to walk with weak unsteady steps
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3
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4
Important & Difficult points
• The comprehension of the whole story • The understanding of colloquial,
slangy or black English expressions • The appreciation of the writing
Everyday Use-Alice Walker(《祖母的日常用品》爱丽丝.沃克)原版辅导教学问题
Everyday UseAlice WalkerI will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house.Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: She will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister had held life always in the palm of one hand, that “no” is a word the world never learned to say to her.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------2You’ve no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has “made it” is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage. (A pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other’s faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep; the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs.Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a dark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the stage, and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she had told me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------3In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with asledgehammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue.But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. She would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------4“How do I look, Mama?” Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin body enveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she’s there, almost hidden by the door.“Come out into the yard,” I say.Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground.Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She’s a woman now, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie’s arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. 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. Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes? I’d wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------5I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised the money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us without pity, forcing words, lies, otherfolks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious ways she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she’d made from an ol d suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was.6I never had an education myself. After second grade the school closed down. Don’t ask me why: In 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can’t see well. She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed her by. She will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face), and then I’ll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a tune. I was always better at a man’s job. I used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in ’49. Cows are soothing and slow and don’t bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way.I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just like the one that burned, except the roof is tin; they don’t make shingle roofs anymore. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the port-holes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. This house is in a pasture, too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down. She wrote me once that no matter where we “choose” to live, she will manage to come see us. But she will never bri ng her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me, “Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?”--------------------------------------------------------------------------------7She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school. Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her, they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye. She read to them.When she was courting Jimmy T, she didn’t have much time to pay to us but turned all her faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant, flashy people. She hardly had time to recompose herself.When she comes, I will meet—but there they are!Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stay her with my hand. “Come back here,” I say. And she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe.It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat looking, as if God himself shaped them with a certain style. From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath. “Uhnnnh” is what it sounds like. Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your foot on the road. “Uhnnnh.”--------------------------------------------------------------------------------8Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits. The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear Maggie go “Uhnnnh” again. It is her sister’s hair. It stands straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears.“Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!” she says, coming on in that g liding way the dress makes her move. The short, stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning, and he follows up with “Asalamalakim,1 my mother and sister!” He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right up against the back of my chair. I feel her trembling there, and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------9“Don’t get up,” says Dee. Since I am stout, it takes something of a push. You can see me trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, andgoes back to the car. 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. When a cow comes nibbling around in the edge of the yard, she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car and comes up and kisses me on the forehead.Meanwhile, Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie’s hand. Maggie’s hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don’t know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie.“Well,” I say. “Dee.”“No, Mama,” she says. “Not ‘Dee,’ Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!”--------------------------------------------------------------------------------10“What happened to ‘Dee’?” I wanted to know.“She’s dead,” Wangero said. “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me.”“You know as well as me you w as named after your aunt Dicie,” I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We called her “Big Dee” after Dee was born.“But who was she named after?” asked Wangero.“I guess after Grandma Dee,” I said.“And who was she named after?” asked Wangero.“Her mother,” I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. “That’s about as far back as I can traceit,” I said. Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War through the branches.“Well,” said Asalamalakim, “there you are.”“Uhnnnh,” I heard Maggie say.11“There I was not,” I said, “before ‘Dicie’ cropped up in our family, so why should I try to trace it that far back?”He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head.“How do you pronounce this name?” I asked.“You don’t have to call me by it if you don’t want to,” said Wangero.“Why shouldn’t I?” I asked. “If that’s what you want us to call you, we’ll call you.”“I know it might sound awkward at first,” said Wangero.“I’ll get used to it,” I said. “Ream it out again.”Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over it two or three times, he told me to just call him Hakim-a-barber.I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn’t really think he was, so I didn’t ask.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------12“You must belong to those beef-cattle peoples down the road,” I said. They said “Asalamalakim”when they met you, too, but they didn’t shake hands. Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt-lick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd, the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.Hakim-a-barber said, “I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style.” (They didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask, whether Wangero—Dee—had really gone and married him.)We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn’t eat collards, and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and corn bread, the greens, and everything else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn’t afford to buy chairs.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------13“Oh, Mama!” she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. “I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints,” she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh, and her hand closed over Grandma Dee’s butter dish. “That’s it!” she said. “I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have.” She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it clabber2 by now. She looked at the churn and looked at it.“This churn top is what I need,” she said. “Didn’t Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?”“Yes,” I said.“Uh huh,” she said happily. “And I want the dasher,3 too.”“Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?” asked the barber.Dee (Wangero) looked up at me.“Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dash,” said Maggie so low you almost couldn’t hear her.“His name was Henry, but they called him Stash.”--------------------------------------------------------------------------------14“Maggie’s brain is like an elephant’s,” Wangero said, laughing. “I can use the churn top as a centerpiece for the alcove table,” she said, sliding a plate over the churn, “and I’ll think of something artistic to do with the dasher.”When she finished wrapping the dasher, the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my hands. You didn’t even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. It was beautiful light-yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived.After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee, and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Star pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra’s uniform that he wore in the Civil War.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------15“Mama,” Wangero said sweet as a bird. “Can I have these old quilts?”I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed.“Why don’t you take one or two of the others?” I asked. “These old things was just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced befor e she died.”“No,” said Wangero. “I don’t want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine.”“That’ll make them last better,” I said.“That’s not the point,” said Wangero. “These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did a ll this stitching by hand. Imagine!” She held the quilts securely in her arms, stroking them.16“Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come from old clothes her mother handed down to her,” I said, moving up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) mo ved back just enough so that I couldn’t reach the quilts. They already belonged to her.“Imagine!” she breathed again, clutching them closely to her bosom.“The truth is,” I said, “I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John T homas.”She gasped like a bee had stung her.“Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” she said. “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.”“I reckon she would,” I said. “God knows I been saving ’em for long enough with nobody using ’em. I hope she will!” I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------17“But they’re priceless!” she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!”“She can always make some more,” I said. “Maggie knows how to quilt.”D ee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. “You just will not understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!”“Well,” I said, stumped. “What would you do with them?”“Hang them,” she said. As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts.Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other.“She can have them, Mama,” she said, like somebody used to never winning anything or having anything reserved for her. “I can ’member Grandma Dee without the quilts.”--------------------------------------------------------------------------------18I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff, and it gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear, but she wasn’t mad at her. This was Maggie’s portion. This was the way she knew God to work.When I looked at her like that, something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I’m in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero’s hands, and dumped them into Maggie’s lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open.“Take one or two of the others,” I said to Dee.But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------19“You just don’t understand,” she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car.“What don’t I understand?” I wanted to know.“Your heritage,” she said. And then she turned to Maggie, kissed her, and said, “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.”She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and her chin.Maggie smiled, maybe at the sunglasses. But a real smile, not scared. After we watched the car dust settle, I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Making MeaningsEveryday UseReading Checka. According to Mama, how is Dee different from her and from Maggie?b. How would Maggie and Dee use the quilts differently?c. When she was a child, something terrible happened to Maggie. What was it?d. How did the mother choose to resolve the conflict over the quilts?e. Find the passage in the text that explains the title .First Thoughts1. Which character did you side with in the conflict over the quilts, and why?Shaping Interpretations2. What do you think is the source of the conflict in this story? Consider:3. Dee is re ferred to as the child who has “made it.” What do you think that means, and what signs tell you that she has “made it”?4. Use a diagram like the one on the right to compare and contrast Dee and Maggie. What is themost significant thing they have in common? What is their most compelling difference?5. Near the end of the story, Dee accuses Mama of not understanding their African American heritage. Do you agree or disagree with Dee, and why?6. Has any character changed by the end of the story? Go back to the text and find details to support your answer.7. Why do you think Alice Walker dedicated her story “For Your Grandmama”?Extending the Text8. What do you think each of these three women will be doing ten years after the story ends?9. This story takes place in a very particular setting and a very particular culture. Talk about whether or not the problems faced by this family could be experienced by any family, anywhere.Challenging the Text10. Do you think Alice Walker chose the right narrator for her story? How would the story differ if Dee or Maggie were telling it, instead of Mama? (What would we know that we don’t know now?)来源网址：/books/Elements_of_Lit_Cours e4/Collection%201/Everyday%20Use%20p4.htm。
everydayuse读后感中文
everydayuse读后感中文I really enjoyed reading "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker. The story delves into the complexities of family relationships and the struggle to maintain a connection to one's cultural heritage. The characters are well-developed and the themes of identity and heritage are beautifully woven throughout the narrative. The conflict between Deeand her mother and sister is particularly compelling, as it highlights the tension between embracing one's heritage and seeking individuality.英文回答，The symbolism of the quilts in the story is also quite powerful. The quilts represent the family's heritage and the struggle to preserve it. Dee wants to take the quilts and hang them up as art, while her mother sees them as practical, everyday items that should be used and appreciated in daily life. This conflict over the quilts serves as a metaphor for the larger struggle between the characters to understand and honor their heritage.Overall, "Everyday Use" is a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant story that explores the complexities of family dynamics and the importance of cultural heritage.中文回答，我非常喜欢阅读艾丽斯·沃克的《日常使用》。
高级英语 Everyday Use 背景资料
5
About the story
Through the title of her short story, Alice Walker conceptually expresses her wariness of the Black Power Movement. During the mid-1960’s, young black African Americans proclaimed they would no longer be oppressed by their current lifestyle and began to celebrate African culture by exploiting it for exotic names and ethnic appeal.
4
About the story
Everyday use, a story addresses itself to the dilemma of African Americans who, in striving to escape prejudice and poverty, risk a terrible deracination（隔 离）, a sundering from all that has sustained and defined them.
16这是一名黑人妇女在华盛顿职业介绍会上收集工作介绍材料这是2005年6月10日美国东南部一名无家可归的黑人男子在的迈阿密南海滩钻进塑料袋里躲避飓风袭击17这是2005年10月8日在美国路易斯安那州新奥尔良市波旁大街的一家酒吧外几名白人警察正在殴打一名老年黑人男子
of Everyday Use
Background
英语1091 姚莉 胡慧
everyday use by alice walker译文
everyday use by alice walker译文以下是为您生成的译文：《艾丽斯·沃克的<日常使用>》原文这篇东西讲的呢，就是一些日常生活里的事儿。
咱一点点来掰扯掰扯。
先说这家人，有个老妈，还有俩闺女。
大闺女呢，叫迪伊，跑到大城市去混了，觉着自己可了不起，学了一堆花里胡哨的东西。
小闺女呢，叫麦姬，就在家里老老实实呆着，跟着老妈过日子。
有一天，迪伊回来了，打扮得那叫一个花枝招展，还带了个男朋友。
她一回来就瞅着家里这也不顺眼，那也不顺眼，觉得老妈和麦姬太土气。
老妈呢，一直守着家里的老物件，像什么被子啦，搅乳器啦。
迪伊就想要这些东西，说这是传统，是文化，要拿回去当宝贝供着。
可老妈心里清楚，这些东西真正的用处不是摆在那好看，而是日常使用。
麦姬呢，因为小时候被火烧伤过，有点自卑，也不咋说话。
但她心里明白家里这些东西的价值。
迪伊非要拿那些被子，老妈就不干，说这被子得留着日常用。
迪伊还不高兴了，觉得老妈不懂她的心思。
其实啊，老妈心里跟明镜似的，知道啥是真正的过日子，啥是表面的花架子。
最后老妈还是把被子给了麦姬，因为她知道麦姬会像一直以来那样，踏踏实实地用这些东西。
这故事说的就是，有时候咱别光追求那些看着高大上的东西，真正的生活还是平平常常、实实在在的好。
就像家里那些老物件，能用在日常生活里，那才有价值，光摆着好看有啥用？咱过日子得脚踏实地，别整那些虚头巴脑的。
这故事出自艾丽斯·沃克的手笔，她写这故事就是想让咱明白，生活的真谛就在那些日常的点点滴滴里，别瞎折腾，别光追求表面的光鲜。
咱得实实在在地过日子，珍惜身边那些普普通通却又实实在在的东西。
Alice walker everyday use
Activism
Alice Walker met Martin Luther King Jr. when she was a student at Spelman College in Atlanta in the early 1960s. Walker credits King for her decision to return to the American South as an activist for the Civil Rights Movement. She attended the famous 1963March on Washington. As a young adult she volunteered her time registering voters in Georgia and Mississippi On March 8, 2003, International Women's Day, on the eve of the Iraq War, Alice Walker was arrested along with 24 others for crossing a police line during an anti-war protest rally outside the White House. Walker wrote about the experience in her essay "We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For.― In November 2008, Alice Walker wrote "An Open Letter to Barack Obama" that was published on The root. Com. Walker address the newly elected President as ―Brother Obama‖
Alice Walker
Unit 3 Everyday Use by Alice Walker❑Alice Walker (1944- ) poet, novelist and essayist born into a poor rural family for which her parents made a living by growing cotton.❑Being a teacher of creative writing and black literature, lecturing at college and university❑Alice Walker is at her best when portraying people living in the rural areas where the writer was born and grew up.❑As a black writer, Walker is particularly interested in examining the relationship among the blacks themselves.❑The Black Power movement grew out of the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT that had steadily gained momentum through the 1950s and 1960s. Although not a formal movement, the Black Power movement marked a turning point in black-white relations in the United States and also in how blacks saw themselves.❑The movement was hailed by some as a positive and proactive force aimed at helping blacks achieve full equality with whites, but it was reviled by others as a militant, sometimes violent faction whose primary goal was to drivea wedge between whites and blacks. In truth, the Black Power movement was a complex event that took place ata time when society and culture was being transformed throughout the United States, and its legacy reflects thatcomplexity.❑The Black Power movement instilled a sense of racial pride and self-esteem in blacks. Blacks were told that it was up to them to improve their lives. Black Power advocates encouraged blacks to form or join all-black political parties that could provide a formidable power base and offer a foundation for real socioeconomic progress.❑For years, the movement's leaders said, blacks had been trying to aspire to white ideals of what they should be.Now it was time for blacks to set their own agenda, putting their needs and aspirations first. An early step, in fact, was the replacement of the word "Negro" (a word associated with the years of SLAVERY) with "black."❑The movement generated a number of positive developments. Probably the most noteworthy of these was its influence on black culture. For the first time, blacks in the United States were encouraged to acknowledge their African heritage. COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES established black studies programs and black studies departments. Blacks who had grown up believing that they were descended from a backwards people now found out that African culture was as rich and diverse as any other, and they were encouraged to take pride in that heritage.The characters in Everyday Use❑The mother, the two daughters (Dee and Maggie)❑There is a sharp contrast between the two daughters❑Dee’s attitude towards the house, the churn top and the quilts❑The mother and Maggie’s attitude towards DeeThe mother❑ 1.Being a ty pical working woman who is far different from Dee’s ideal mother 2. Being fat, shy and timid ❑ 3. Being with little education, but not without intelligence and perceptionThe analysis of the character—Maggie❑Being homely (not good-looking), like a lame animal with burn scars down her arms and legs❑Being shy, timid❑Eying her sister with the mixture of envy and awe,❑Being nervous when meeting Dee❑The art makerDee❑Being pretty❑Life is generous to her. The world never says “no” to her.❑Having a style of her own and knew what style is.❑Being bold and undaunted （不退缩）and having a strong character,❑Being not an easy person to get along with❑Looking down upon her mother and sisterThe theme of Everyday UseWith her story, Alice Walker is saying that art should be a living, breathing part of the culture it arose from, rather than a frozen timepiece to be observed from a distance. To make this point, she uses the quilts in her story to symbolize art; and what happens to these quilts represents her theory of art.The attitudes towards art❑The two sisters' values concerning the quilt represent the two main approaches to art appreciation in our society.Art can be valued for financial and aesthetic reasons, or it can be valued for personal and emotional reasons.When the narrator snatches the quilts from Dee and gives them to Maggie, Walker is saying that the second set of values is the correct one. Art, in order to be kept alive, must be put to "Everyday Use" — literally in the case of the quilts, figuratively in the case of conventional art.Other views on Everyday Use❑...all three women characters are artists: Mama, as the narrator, tells her own story; Maggie is the quilt- maker, the creator of art for Everyday Use; Dee, the photographer and collector of art, has designed her jewelry, dress and hair so deliberately and self- consciously that she appears in the story as a self-creation.❑She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included.❑In this sentence the author uses one figure of speech: litotes.第二个介绍•Award•In 1983, The Color Purple won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction（普利策小说奖）, making Walker the first black woman to win. Walker was also the first black woman to win the National Book Award（国家图书奖）。
Everyday Use for your grandmama
Everyday Use for your grandmamaby Alice WalkerAlice Walker (1944~ ), the author of Everyday Use for your grandmama, was borned in Eatonton, Georgia. When she went to Sarah Lawrence College in the early 1960’s, the civil rights movement was in full swing. She was actively involved in the movement. From 1967, she has been teaching creative writing and black literature, lecturing at several colleges. Now she is regarded as one of the most prominent writers in American literature and a most forceful representative of women’s literature and black literature.She has published a number of collections of short stories, poetry, and other published work. In 1983, Walker became the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with her novel The Color Purple, which also won the National Book Award.The short stories Everyday Use(1973) is included in the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, 2nd Edition, 1981, was written during the heyday of the Black Power movement, when African Americans were trying to gain racial equality and called for self-determination and racial dignity. Blacks were seeking their cultural roots in Africa, but a lot of blacks went off course, like Dee in this story.This is a short novel which tell us a story about a young black people, Dee, wants the old quilts only to be refused flatly by the mother, who intends to give them to Maggie, the younger one. The story begins with the narrator, a black women, awaiting the homecoming of her daugher Dee, an educated women pursuing the fasion things. Accompanying her young daughter Maggie. However, Dee has been scornful of black and delightes herself by the old way of life and becomes more interesting to the old quits made from pieces of clothes worn by grand and great grand parents and stitched by Grandma’s hand. The old quits are clearly a symbol of the cultural heritage of the black people. Their different feelings about the quilts reveal their different attitudes towards their heritage as blacks.Everyday use is told in the first-person point of view. This point of view involves readers in the story as they were experiencing of the story. This technique seeks tovalidate the experiences of an offten oppressed group of people: lower-class black women. In addition the first-person point of view, Everday use is enriched by Alice Walker’s employment of symbols. In particular, the contested heritage of the black people. Their different feeling about the quits reval their different attitudes towards their heritage as blacks. And, the auther adopted the historcal present. The historcal present refers to the employment of the present tense when narrating past events. It is used in fiction, for “hot news”, and in everyday conversation, it is partical any common with “verbs of communication” such as tell, write, etc.This story gives us a incisive description about the feminism, racism and the inheritance of culture. Everyday Use is Alice Walker’s answer to the social discourse of that time, especially concerning the African American concept of heritage and identity. The story is widely acceptd as one of the best stories on the dilemma of black heitage and has a wide range of images.It gives birth to new aspects every time you have understood one of the numerous levels of meaning the story includes.As a black writer, Walker is particularly interested in examining the relationships among the blacks themselves. And Walker's creative vision is rooted in the economic hardship, racial terror, and folk wisdom of African American life and culture, particularly in the rural South. Her writing explores multidimensional kinships among women and embraces the redemptive power of social and political revolution. Her writings also focus on the role of women of color in culture and history. Walker is a respected figure in the liberal political community for her support of unconventional and unpopular views as a matter of principle. And these are why, perhaps, that Alice Walker’s works have won great popularity all over in America.。
高级英语everyday use读后感
高级英语everyday use读后感"Everyday Use" is a short story by Alice Walker that explores themes of identity, culture, and tradition. Set in the rural South of the United States, the story centers around a family's interaction with their visiting cousin, Dee, who has embraced a more modern and urban lifestyle. Through Dee's visit, the story highlights the contrast between traditional African American culture and the allure of modernity, particularly as seen through Dee's desire to claim certain cultural artifacts as her own.The narrative is primarily told through the eyes of the story's protagonist, Maggie, a younger sister who finds herself caught between her older sister's aspirations and her mother's传统观念. Maggie's internal conflict reflects the tension that often exists within families when generational divides are exposed. Dee, with her newfound interest in African American heritage, wants to take possession of her ancestors' quilts, symbols of their hard work and craftsmanship. However, these quilts hold deeper cultural and emotional value for Maggie's mother, who madethem herself, and for Maggie, who identifies with them as a part of her heritage.Walker's exploration of the theme of identity is particularly poignant in this story. Dee's embrace ofAfrican American culture seems superficial, motivated more by a desire to fit in with a certain social group than by a true understanding and appreciation of the culture's deeper meanings. By contrast, Maggie's connection to her heritageis more authentic, rooted in her personal experiences and memories. This contrast highlights the importance of understanding one's identity not just as a product of external factors but also as a result of internal processes of self-discovery and self-understanding.The story also raises questions about the role of tradition in shaping individual and collective identities. Dee's rejection of her family's traditional way of life and her embrace of a more urban, modern identity reflect the influence of external forces on individual choices. However, Maggie's reluctance to give up the quilts, despite Dee's offers of more "practical" gifts, suggests that traditioncan also serve as a powerful anchor, grounding individuals in their cultural heritage.Walker's use of symbolism in "Everyday Use" is also noteworthy. The quilts, which Dee desires so eagerly, serve as symbols not only of craftsmanship but also of the older generation's wisdom and experience. By refusing to give up the quilts, Maggie's mother and Maggie herself are effectively rejecting Dee's shallow understanding of her heritage and affirming their own deeper connection to it. In conclusion, "Everyday Use" is a profound exploration of identity, culture, and tradition. Through the contrasting narratives of Dee and Maggie, Walker challenges readers to consider the complexity of identity formation and the role of tradition in shaping it. The story encourages us to question our own assumptions aboutidentity and heritage, and to embrace the rich tapestry of our cultural backgrounds with pride and respect.**《日常用品》读后感**《日常用品》是爱丽丝·沃克的一篇短篇小说，探讨了身份、文化和传统等主题。
Everyday Use人物分析兼论其主题
Everyday Use人物分析兼论其主题［摘要］在Everyday Use中，Maggie and Dee虽是出生于同一家庭的俩姐妹，但由于种种原因而形成的身体和心理方面的差异极大。
本文着重分析了这两个人物的差异，并探讨了其主题。
［关键词］Everyday Use,人物,主题Everyday Use出自〈高级英语〉（第一册，张汉熙主编）第四课，其作者是美国现代著名女作家Alice Walker。
作者在课文中以第一人称（mother of Dee and Maggie）巧妙、含蓄地道出两代黑人（mother and her two daughters）或者说同一代黑人（Dee and Maggie，two sisters）之间在思想观念以及黑人文化遗产上所面临的两难抉择以及他们所持的复杂态度。
尤其是关于黑人母亲对自己两个女儿（Dee and Maggie）的评价的描写更加有力地彰显了这种抉择的艰难和态度的复杂。
可见，Maggie and Dee虽是出生于同一家庭的俩姐妹，但由于种种原因而形成的身体和心理方面的差异极大。
一、Maggie and Dee差异分析作为少数民族最大的群体，美国的黑人是在经过数百年的交叉影响和相互作用下，非洲文化同美国白人文化的共同交融而孕育出的一种新型黑人—美国黑人或称美国非洲裔黑人。
由于美国政府在南北战争前一直奉行白人至上的政策，因此，虽然在数量上作为少数民族最大的群体的美国黑人，他们在政治、经济、文化以及社会生活等各方面却一直处于无权和被压迫的境地。
Alice Walke生于1944年，此时的美国在政治上较之从前已经发生了天翻地覆的变化。
比如说，轰轰烈烈的、席卷全国的废奴运动业已结束，发端于20 世纪20年代纽约市黑人聚居区—哈莱姆的“黑人文艺复兴”也方兴未艾。
因此，她所耳闻目睹的美国黑人无论在政治、经济还是文化等方面都有了明显的改观。
事实上，Alice Walke时代的美国黑人正面临着这样一种两难抉择：一方面，他们要不失时机地与白人交流和融合；另一方面，他们又必须想方设法地保全自己的传统和文化。
everydayuse读后感
everydayuse读后感英文回答："Everyday Use" is a short story written by Alice Walker that explores the themes of heritage, identity, and the conflict between traditional and modern values. The story revolves around a mother and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. The mother, who is the narrator of the story, is torn between her two daughters and their different views on heritage.The story begins with the arrival of Dee, who has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, claimingthat she wants to embrace her African roots. Dee is portrayed as a modern, educated woman who values material possessions and sees her family's heritage as mereartifacts to be displayed. On the other hand, Maggie, who was scarred in a house fire, is depicted as shy and unassuming, but deeply connected to her family's history.As the story unfolds, the conflict between Dee and her mother becomes more apparent. Dee wants to take thefamily's quilts, which were made by her grandmother andgreat-grandmother, and hang them on the wall as a form of art. However, the mother decides to give the quilts to Maggie, who will put them to everyday use. This decision symbolizes the mother's choice to preserve her family's heritage and pass it on to the next generation.Through the characters of Dee and Maggie, Walker explores the different ways in which people can connectwith their heritage. Dee represents the superficial and materialistic approach, while Maggie represents a deeper, more personal connection. The story ultimately suggeststhat heritage should not be reduced to mere objects, but should be embraced and celebrated in everyday life.中文回答：《日常使用》是艾丽丝·沃克写的一篇短篇小说，探讨了传统、身份认同和传统与现代价值观之间的冲突。
高级英语everyday use读后感
高级英语everyday use读后感全文共3篇示例，供读者参考篇1Everyday Use by Alice Walker is a thought-provoking story that explores the themes of cultural heritage, family relationships, and the importance of understanding one's roots. Through the character of Mama and her two daughters, Dee and Maggie, Walker delves into the complexities of identity and the struggle to navigate between the past and the present.One of the central conflicts in the story revolves around the quilt that Mama has promised to give to Maggie on her wedding day. Dee, who has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo in an attempt to embrace her African roots, insists on taking the quilt to hang it up as an artistic piece. This moment encapsulates the tension between Dee's desire to connect with her heritage in a superficial way and Mama and Maggie's more authentic and practical bond with their history.Walker uses the quilt as a symbol of heritage and tradition, highlighting the different ways in which the characters in the story view their cultural roots. Dee sees the quilt as a valuableartifact to display and show off, while Mama and Maggie see it as a practical item to be used and cherished in their everyday lives. This stark contrast illustrates the disconnect between Dee's outward embrace of her African identity and her lack of understanding of the true meaning behind the objects that symbolize her heritage.Through Mama's internal struggles and reflections on her relationship with her daughters, Walker delves into the complexities of family dynamics and the impact of cultural differences on understanding and empathy. Mama's realization that she has often favored Dee over Maggie due to her education and ambition sheds light on the ways in which societal expectations and personal biases can influence family relationships.Overall, Everyday Use is a powerful exploration of the complexities of identity, heritage, and family dynamics. Through the character of Mama and her daughters, Walker delves into the nuances of cultural heritage and the ways in which it can both connect and divide people. The story serves as a reminder of the importance of understanding and respecting one's roots, while also highlighting the need for empathy, compassion, andcommunication in navigating the complexities of family relationships.篇2"Everyday Use" is a thought-provoking short story written by Alice Walker. It revolves around the themes of heritage, identity, and cultural appropriation. The story follows a family reunion between two sisters, Dee and Maggie, and their mother, Mama. Dee, who has rebranded herself as Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, visits her family home in search of artifacts to display in her home as a testament to her African heritage. Throughout the story, Walker skillfully explores the tensions that arise when modernity clashes with tradition.One of the most striking aspects of "Everyday Use" is the exploration of how individuals perceive and value their heritage. Dee's fascination with her African roots leads her to reject her family's quilts because she views them as mere objects of cultural significance rather than items of practical use. In contrast, Maggie values the quilts for their sentimental value and connection to her family's history. This stark difference in perspective highlights the complexity of identity and the ways in which individuals can become disconnected from their cultural heritage.Furthermore, Walker delves into the issue of cultural appropriation as Dee attempts to claim ownership of her family's heritage without truly understanding or appreciating its significance. By changing her name and rejecting her family's traditions, Dee exemplifies the idea of superficial cultural appreciation. This raises important questions about the commodification of culture and the ways in which individuals can exploit their heritage for personal gain.Ultimately, "Everyday Use" serves as a powerful commentary on the importance of understanding and respecting one's heritage. It encourages readers to reflect on the complexities of identity and the ways in which we can honor our cultural roots while also embracing modernity. Walker's storytelling is masterful in its ability to provoke thought and inspire introspection, making "Everyday Use" a timeless and relevant piece of literature.篇3Everyday Use by Alice Walker is a powerful andthought-provoking short story that explores themes of heritage, identity, and the complex relationship between family members. Upon reading this story, I was struck by the depth of emotion and the richness of the characters that Walker has created.The story centers around a mother and her two daughters, Dee and Maggie, who have vastly different attitudes towards their family's heritage. Dee, who has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, views her family's handmade quilts and other items as artifacts to be displayed and admired for their cultural significance. In contrast, Maggie values these items for their practical use and as a source of comfort and familiarity.One of the most striking aspects of Everyday Use is the way in which Walker explores the complexities of identity and heritage. Dee's rejection of her given name and her insistence on embracing her African roots can be seen as a rejection of her family's history and traditions. On the other hand, Maggie's quiet acceptance of her heritage and her connection to her family's past reveal a deeper understanding of the importance of these traditions.Through the character of Mama, Walker also examines the generational divide between parents and children. Mama's struggle to reconcile her love for both of her daughters and her desire to pass on her family's history and traditions is palpable throughout the story. Her ultimate decision to give the quilts to Maggie, who will continue to use and appreciate them ineveryday life, is a powerful statement about the true value of heritage.Overall, Everyday Use is a poignant and insightful exploration of the complexities of family relationships, identity, and heritage. Walker's vivid characters and evocative storytelling make this story a timeless and resonant piece of literature that challenges readers to reflect on their own relationships with their past and their families.。
everyday use主题,主要人物,背景,作者
In this short story, walker reveals the phenomenon of black people's spiritual and cultural loss caused by the strong culture shock of white people and reflects the different attitudes of black people under the strong culture shock vividly and accurately.
thank you
In the early 20th century, the New Negro Cultural Movement was born. It took advantage of the favorable situation after the first world war to revive the black folk cultural heritage, express racial self-identity, oppose racial discrimination and revitalize the American black culture as its main content, and intended to integrate into the mainstream American society on the premise of maintaining the dignity and individuality of the black people. Many blacks have embarked on their own journey to find their roots and reject a culture of pain and denial. However, many black people who blindly seek for their roots have a superficial understanding of their national culture and heritage. They only pay attention to the external manifestation of culture and do not really understand the rich connotation of culture and heritage.
Everyday use
The youngest of eight children Father: Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant who was, in her words, "wonderful at math but a terrible farmer," earned only $300 a year from sharecropping and dairy farming; Mother:supplemented the family income by working as a maid. Hometown: Eatonton, Georgia Alice Walker met Martin Luther King Jr. when she was a student at Spelman College in Atlanta in the early 1960s. Walker credits King for her decision to return to the American South as an activist for the Civil Rights Movement.
Novels and short story collections
1.The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) 2.In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women (1973) 3.Meridian (1976) 4.The Color Purple(1982) 5.You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories (1982) 6.To Hell With Dying (1988) 7.The Temple of My Familiar (1989) 8.Finding the Green Stone (1991) 9.Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992)
Everyday Use人物分析兼论其主题
Everyday Use人物分析兼论其主题［摘要］在Everyday Use中，Maggie and Dee虽是出生于同一家庭的俩姐妹，但由于种种原因而形成的身体和心理方面的差异极大。
本文着重分析了这两个人物的差异，并探讨了其主题。
［关键词］Everyday Use,人物,主题Everyday Use出自〈高级英语〉（第一册，张汉熙主编）第四课，其作者是美国现代著名女作家Alice Walker。
作者在课文中以第一人称（mother of Dee and Maggie）巧妙、含蓄地道出两代黑人（mother and her two daughters）或者说同一代黑人（Dee and Maggie，two sisters）之间在思想观念以及黑人文化遗产上所面临的两难抉择以及他们所持的复杂态度。
尤其是关于黑人母亲对自己两个女儿（Dee and Maggie）的评价的描写更加有力地彰显了这种抉择的艰难和态度的复杂。
可见，Maggie and Dee虽是出生于同一家庭的俩姐妹，但由于种种原因而形成的身体和心理方面的差异极大。
一、Maggie and Dee差异分析作为少数民族最大的群体，美国的黑人是在经过数百年的交叉影响和相互作用下，非洲文化同美国白人文化的共同交融而孕育出的一种新型黑人—美国黑人或称美国非洲裔黑人。
由于美国政府在南北战争前一直奉行白人至上的政策，因此，虽然在数量上作为少数民族最大的群体的美国黑人，他们在政治、经济、文化以及社会生活等各方面却一直处于无权和被压迫的境地。
Alice Walke生于1944年，此时的美国在政治上较之从前已经发生了天翻地覆的变化。
比如说，轰轰烈烈的、席卷全国的废奴运动业已结束，发端于20 世纪20年代纽约市黑人聚居区—哈莱姆的“黑人文艺复兴”也方兴未艾。
因此，她所耳闻目睹的美国黑人无论在政治、经济还是文化等方面都有了明显的改观。
事实上，Alice Walke时代的美国黑人正面临着这样一种两难抉择：一方面，他们要不失时机地与白人交流和融合；另一方面，他们又必须想方设法地保全自己的传统和文化。
Everyday Use by Alice Walker
Everyday Use by Alice WalkerI will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house.Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks 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.You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has "made it" is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage. (A pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other's faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs.Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a dark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers. In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls dur.ing the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog.One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue. But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head fumed in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. Shewould always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature."How do I look, Mama?" Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin body enveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she's there, almost hiddenby the door. "Come out into the yard," I say. Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks.She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground.Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She's a woman now, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten,twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie's arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. 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. Why don't you do a dance around the ashes? I'd wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand. Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she'd made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was.I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't ask my why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can't see well. She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passes her by. She will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I'll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a tune. I was always better at a man's job. I used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in 49. Cows are soothing and slow and don't bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way.I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just like the one that burned, except the roof is tin; they don't make shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. This house is in a pasture, too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down. She wrote me once that no matter where we "choose" to live, she will manage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie asked me, "Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?" She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school. Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye. She read to them. When she was courting Jimmy T she didn't have much time to pay to us, but turned allher faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant flashy people. She hardly had time to recompose herself.When she comes I will meet—but there they are! Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stay her with my hand. "Come back here, " I say. And she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe.It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style. From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath. "Uhnnnh, " is what it sounds like. Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your foot on the road. "Uhnnnh." Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits. The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear Maggie go "Uhnnnh" again. It is her sister's hair. It stands straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears. "Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!" she says, coming on in that gliding way the dress makes her move. The short stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with "Asalamalakim, my mother and sister!" He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right up against the back of my chair. I feel her trembling there and when I look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin. "Don't get up," says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a push. You can see me trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes back to the car. 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 mak' ing sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car, and comes up and kisses me on the forehead.Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie's hand. Maggie's hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don't know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie. "Well," I say. "Dee." "No, Mama," she says. "Not 'Dee,' Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!" "What happened to 'Dee'?" I wanted to know. "She's dead," Wangero said. "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me." "You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie," I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We called her "Big Dee" after Dee was born. "But who was she named after?" asked Wangero. "I guess after Grandma Dee," I said. "And who was she named after?" asked Wangero. "Her mother," I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. "That's about as far back as I can trace it," I said.Though,in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War through the branches. "Well," said Asalamalakim, "there you are." "Uhnnnh," I heard Maggie say. "There I was not," I said, "before 'Dicie' cropped up in our family, so why should I try to trace it that far back?" He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head. "How do you pronounce this name?" I asked. "You don't have to call me by it if you don't want to," said Wangero. "Why shouldn't 1?" I asked. "If that's what you want us to call you, we'll call you." "I know it might sound awkward at first," said Wangero. "I'll get used to it," I said. "Ream it out again." Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim.a.barber. I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn't really think he was, so I didn't ask. "You must belong to those beef-cattle peoples down the road," I said. They said "Asalamalakim" when they met you, too, but they didn't shake hands.Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up salt.lick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight. Hakim-a-barber said, "I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style." (They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.)We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn't eat collards and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and com bread, the greens and everything else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn't effort to buy chairs. "Oh, Mama!" she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. "I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints," she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's butter dish. "That's it!" she said. "I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have." She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it crabber by now. She looked at the churn and looked at it. "This churn top is what I need," she said. "Didn't Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?" "Yes," I said. "Un-huh," she said happily. "And I want the dasher, too." "Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?" asked the barber. Dee (Wangero) looked up at me. "Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash," said Maggie so low you almost couldn't hear her. "His name was Henry, but they called him Stash." "Maggie's brain is like an elephant's," Wangero said, laughing. "I can use the chute top as a centerpiece for the alcove table," she said, sliding a plate over the chute, "and I'll think of something artistic to do with the dasher." When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my hands. You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. It was beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived. After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bedand started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt ftames on the ftont porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Stat pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jattell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War. " Mama," Wangro said sweet as a bird. "Can I have these old quilts?" I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed. "Why don't you take one or two of the others?" I asked. "These old things was just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died." "No," said Wangero. "I don't want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine." "That'll make them last better," I said. "That's not the point," said Wangero. "These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imagine!" She held the quilts securely in her arms, stroking them. "Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come from old clothes her mother handed down to her," I said, moving up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that I couldn't reach the quilts. They already belonged to her. "Imagine!" she breathed again, clutching them closely to her bosom. "The truth is," I said, "I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas." She gasped like a bee had stung her."Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use." "I reckon she would," I said. "God knows I been saving 'em for long enough with nobody using 'em. I hope she will!" I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told they were old~fashioned, out of style. "But they're priceless!" she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. "Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!" "She can always make some more," I said. "Maggie knows how to quilt." Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. "You just will not under.stand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!" "Well," I said, stumped. "What would you do with them7" "Hang them," she said. As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts. Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other. "She can have them, Mama," she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. "I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts." I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn't mad at her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work. When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. I did something I never done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero's hands and dumped them intoMaggie's lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open. "Take one or two of the others," I said to Dee. But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber. "You just don't understand," she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car. "What don't I understand?" I wanted to know. "Your heritage," she said, And then she turned to Maggie, kissed her, and said, "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." She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and chin.Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real smile, not scared. After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed.。
everyday use
Everyday use by Alice walke rAlice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia, the youngest of eight children, to Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant. She grew up in the midst of violent racismand poverty which influenced her later writings. Growing up with an oral tradition, listening to stories from her grandfather (the model for the character of Mr. in The Color Purple), Walker began writing, very privately, when she was eight years old.In 1982, Walker published what has become her best-known work, the novel The Color Purple. About a young ugly black woman fighting her way through not only racist white culture but also patriarchal black culture, it was a resounding commercial success. The book became a bestseller and was subsequently adapted into a critically acclaimed 1985 movie as well as a 2005 Broadway musical.Walker has written several other novels, including T he Temple of My Familiar and Possessing the Secret of Joy. She has published a number of collections of short stories, poetry, and other published work.She expresses the struggles of blacks, particularly women, and their lives in a racist, sexist, and violent society. Her writings also focus on the role of women of color in culture and history. Walker is a respected figure in the liberal political community for her support of unconventional and unpopular views as a matter of principle.Her short stories, include the 1973 Everyday Use, in which she discusses feminism, racism against blacks, and the issues raised by young black people who leave home and lose respect for their parents' culture.Everyday Use is a widely studied and frequently anthologized short story by Alice Walker. It was first published in 1973 as part of Walker's short story collection, In Love and Trouble.The story is told in first person by the "Mama", an African American woman living in the Deep South with one of her two daughters. The story humorously illustrates the differences between Mrs. Johnson and her shy younger daughter Maggie, who still live traditionally in the rural South, and her educated, successful daughter Dee,or "Wangero" as she prefers to be called, who scorns her immediate roots in favor of a pretentious "native African" identity.The most incompatible conflict is their different views on the African culture. Mom and Maggie living a traditional way of the black clashed with Dee who praised the opinion of the white. Mom was a typical black woman, “large, big-boned, with rough, man-working hands” and little education. Doing very hard work like “knocking a bull calf straight in the brain with a sledge hammer” and “breaking ice to get water for washing”, she sustained the whole family laboriously. From her, we see the glittery virtue of hard working of the black women and the great love of a mother as well. Her little daughter Maggie was a shy and conservative girl inheriting the culture from her mom. While without the beauty and braveness, she knew the exact way of there life. However, Dee was very different from them. Accepting the education and culture of the white people, she knew little about her culture, despisedthe black and even hated her identity. She hated their house very much and she did not want to bring her friends to her mom and sister. Her mother tolerated her, raised the money to send her to school and felt proud of her. But she returned this love by detesting and leaving the family. The great virtue and the bitter experience of the black could not evoke her respect and understanding, but the anger and shame instead. The infection of the white's culture made her ignoring the love and beauty of her family and her race.However, Dee had a big change later. Influenced by the Black Power Movement, she got interested in her own culture. The house, the bench, the churn and the quilt, all these things that were used to make her disgusted delighted her then. Following the “fashion” of the movement, she intangibly and surprisingly found the “value” of her family. But it is a pity that Dee only formed a shallow view on her culture. She said the language of the East Africa “a-su-so-tean-o” to her mother, knowing little that they came to America from West Africa. Neglecting the history and the love of the everyday use, she just wanted to keep them as ornaments to make a parade. Maggie, to the opposite, had a different view on the culture. Though did not realize the “value” of the everyday use, she knew everything's history--- who made it, how to use it and how to make it. The typical representative of their culture is the quilt made from pieces of dresses. Through the skillful hands and united work, the old pieces turned into beautiful quilts, with lone star pattern and the picture of walk around the mountain. These quilts are not only the reflection of the wisdom and diligence of the black women, but also impregnated with the love of the family members. Different from Dee’s opinion of “hanging them”, Maggie considered them to be a souvenir of the grandma Dee and she knew how to quilt herself. She would use them as quilts, as the way the black should do. In her hand, the quilts could hold that family-love and pass down from generation to generation, with the traditional living way of black people. Comparing with Dee, the real value of quilts could show only in Maggie’s hands. And that was why mom gave the quilts to Maggie at last.Through the title of her short story, Alice Walker conceptually expresses her wariness of the Black Power Movement. During the mid-1960’s, young black African Americans proclaimed they would not no longer be oppressed by their current lifestyle and began to celebrate African culture by exploiting it for exotic names and ethnic appeal. However, by discarding their southern United States roots, they adopted a culture that does not belong to them, thus abandoning the unique and defining aspects of their own culture. Through a family’s interactions, Alice Walker conveys that the purest and most sincere way to celebrate one’s heritage is by treating it not as a topic of study but rather as a way of life.The title presents us with the central conflict of the story: as a society evolves in sophistication should they honor their heritage by placing their cultural relics on a shelf to be admired, or honor their culture by putting these objects to everyday use?Through the conflicts between the characters, the story reflects the conflict of the society to us.Dee is a black girl trying to enter the mainstream of America, namely the white world, well-educated but knowing little about her culture. Maggie is capable to passdown the precious culture, but she pays the price of living in a less-open environment and giving up high education. And that is the problem. Living in America, being educated in America and attempting to succeed in America inevitably force black people accept the opinions and living way of the white world, possibly make them forgetting or despising or abounding their culture. The disdaining and banishing to the black culture from the white world is the main reason of that. That is Dee who is typical of the conflict between the black and the white world. Through the conflict, we see clearly the plight of furious collision between the two cultures and also the writer’s hope of preserving the blacks’ culture.This novel takes we to think about the western culture’s influence on our traditional Chinese culture. The Mighty Wave of Western Culture expresses itself in many aspects.Young generation eat at any one of the 600 McDonald's or 1,000 KFCs in China, flock to NBA League and Italian Soccer League matches and watch Hollywood rather than domestically produced films. In addition, the youthful preference for Western leisure pursuits extends to holiday celebrations. Of China's numerous traditional festivals, only Spring Festival is unanimously observed by both young and old. Others, such as the Lantern Festival and Dragonboat Festival, are overshadowed by Father's Day, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day and Christmas.Everyone in China, young and old, acknowledges that Western culture has indeed influenced the lifestyle and values of the younger generation.Many researches about the influence of the western culture indicate that Chinese youth is interested in Western products but not in being assimilated into the culture from which they emanate. We are glad to know that today's young Chinese have a more rational stance over Western culture. They do not unconditionally accept Western concepts, nor do they regard Western culture as the be all and end all of civilization; today's young Chinese people absorb elements of both the East and the West.Although the entry of Western culture into China is a challenge, we should not shun Western culture as it contains so many essential attributes that we still need to absorb. The thing we need to do now is to cherish our traditional culture and crave more attention on these excellent heritages. We should use the dynamic vision to deal with our traditional heritage. We should take many practical measures to protect our civilization. And in the same time, we could not be narrow-minded. We can absorb the good elements in the western culture and make contributions to our traditional culture.。
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Class：英语09-1 Name：包红梅Number：200920801033
The summary of everyday use by Alice walker Everyday use for grandmama is an essay by Alice Walker, Who was born in America, 1944.
Alice Walker, an American author and poet, most of whose writing portrays the lives of poor, oppressed African American women in early 1900s.the Color Purple which won the Pulitzer Prize of fiction and The American Book Award. She was also active in the moments for civil war and women’s rights. The short story everyday use, from the collection In Love and Trouble was published in 1973.Alice Walker conceptually expresses her wariness of the Black Power Movement. During the mid-1960’, young black African Americans proclaimed they would shake off their current lifestyle and began to celebrate African culture by exotic names and ethnic appeal. In this story Walker’s attitude is that for the culture heritage, they should not reflect it on purpose, instead it should be treated as a kind of lifestyle.
It is a narrative fiction story, about the different attitudes of three black women in a family to Africa-American heritage. The mother, Mrs. Johnson, who is a less educated worker but intelligent and upright, works in a church and raises money to support one of her two daughters, Dee, to school. Dee is a beautiful, smart, brave but selfish, bad temper and arrogant girl. On contrast, her little sister, Maggie, is a homely girl who had scars on her face. Totally different from Dee, Maggie is a timid, shy, inferior but easy-going, kind and generous girl. Mrs. Johnson is proud of Dee and also she loves Maggie. The story begins in a day when Dee visits her mother’s house and Mrs. Johnson and Maggie waiting for her. They find Dee has changed a lot than before, for she changes her name to a long African name which is very different to pronounce so does her dress. to their surprise she also changes her attitude toward ,everything she used to hate very much. She asks for many things from her mother which she regards as the symbolic of the African culture. But later she focuses on two pairs of old quilts made by their grandmamma which Maggie also wants to have. Dee wants to hang them up, but Maggie thinks it can remind her of her grandmamma. After a long time discussion, their mother gives the quilts to Maggie. The story ends happily with Mrs. Johnson and M aggie still enjoying their simple but happy life. But Dee goes away disappointly.
From the story, we can see the author’s deep respect of their culture, and her attitude towards their culture is that the cultural relic heritage should be regarded as a kind of lifestyle not a study.
The story is well-knit, and make readers imaginable .The plot and the end are favorable just as you wish to have. Though the story is very long, you will not feel bored, for the funny and plain words used. By reading her story, readers can feel excited and have a sense of happiness, since they can realize their dream through their continuous struggle.。