by Kerry Michael Wood

Created on: November 07, 2008

Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use" first appeared in 1973. Many things have changed since then. Afro (or fro) hairdos are no longer popular and commonplace. Thirty-five years ago they were as common as the shaved heads of today's males, both Afro-American and caucasian.

My relatively current unabridged dictionary does not have an entry for "dashiki," the once very popular male shirt and female dress style that Walker refers to in her story - a style that had brief popularity with caucasian purchasers as well as ethnically diverse contemporaries.

Although Arabic- or African-sounding names remain commonplace among those we today refer to as African-Americans, I have not recently heard the foreign greetings Asalamalakim and Was-su-zo-Tean-o that Walker employed with her characters Wangero and Hakim. Their use makes the story seem "dated." Styles and haircuts change. Look at the haircuts and flared trousers worn by professional golfers in replays of tournaments in the mid-70's and try to repress your giggles.

All of that set aside, Walker's story addresses real human concerns that are timeless and universal. The theme or unifying concept of the story is that a mother ingrained with tolerance of a willful and demanding child will take a stand in defense of justice and fairness when a weaker and more timid offspring is about to be victimized.

The narrator and hero of the story is an uneducated black woman, Mama Johnson. There is no appearance or reference to the sire of Mamma's grown daughters, Maggie and Dee, who has adopted the name Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo.

Mama describes herself with simply worded accuracy. She had no education after second grade when her school closed down. "I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. . . . I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill 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."

Not a demonstratively affectionate mother, Mama is accurately perceptive about her two daughters. Maggie is "homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs." She is like a "lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car." She walks

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>