Alice Walker's Everyday Use

The narrator in the story helps us understand the difference between her two daughters. Maggie is dark-skinned but ôDee is lighterö than Maggie with ônicer hair and a fuller figureö (Walker, 1973, p. 1174). As the mother tells us, Maggie ôknows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed her by,ö (Walker, 1973, p. 1175). Ever since she was a young girl, Dee ôwanted nice thingsö (Walker, 1973, 1175). Dee is embarrassed by her poverty and African American heritage. Even when she was little, her mother tells us she hated their home and poverty. When their house burns down and Maggie clings to her mother, the mother thinks of DeeÆs reaction, ôWhy donÆt you do a dance around the ashes? IÆd wanted t

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asteö (Dickinson, 1863, p. 529). In I Heard A Buzz Fly, the speaker is in the process of making the journey between two worlds. The room is still because the eyes have been wrung dry of the storms of life and breaths are getting labored for the last onset ôwhen the King / Be witnessedö (Dickinson, 1862, p. 524). The speaker makes plans for the dissolution of her material possessions and is ready to accept the fate of a good Christian, an afterlife in the Kingdom of Heaven with God. RobinsonÆs (1896) Richard Cory describes a man who has all the charms, skills, and social graces that ômake us wish that we were in his place,ö (p. 1049). Everyone in town envies Richard Cory as he walks about town, going about his daily affairs. However, in the last stanza of the poem, as everyone else is going about their own daily business, ôRichard Coryà / Went home and put a bullet through his headö (Robinson, 1896, p. 1049). The speakerÆs intention is to show us that surface appearances are far from adequate in providing us with the state of mind of an individual. As we go about our daily business and busy lives, we seldom take the time to know someone on a deeper level, like Richard Cory, whose suicide illustrates he might have benefited f
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Approximate Word count = 2739
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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