unit 4 参考资料

"Everyday Use," focuses greatly on different concepts of what history is.The character Maggie has accepted the country life, but has had a more difficult youth than Dee.Mama finds history in her memories of people and places, unlike Dee who finds history in materials.The Women in Alice Walker's Short Story Everyday UseOne Family, Three Very Different Women: Mama, Dee and MaggieAlice Walker‟s short story “Everyday Use” reminds me a lot of my family. No, I am not African-American, and I did not grow up in the rural South, but the characters of Mama, Dee, and Maggie remind me of my mom, me, and my sister. The three of us look alike, share some DNA, and have spent most of our lives in Simi Valley, but other than that, we have nothing in common. Mama, Dee, and Maggie are really the same way. While it would be expected for three closely related women to have much in common, Mama, Dee, and Maggie each have a very different life story, perspective on life, and concept of history.Although the three women are a nuclear family, their DNA may be all the three women have in common. Their life stories are very diverse. Mama grew up in a world where colored people were treated much differently than Maggie and Dee have experienced. When Mama was growing up, she had few civil liberties as a colored person. She mentions that “after second grade, the school was closed down,” (745) and because of this she is not educated and cannot read. Mama can do rough work, such as “kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man,“ with her “rough, man-working hands” (744). She is a very spiritual woman; she mentions that she sings church songs, and describes one of her actions in comparison to how she might act in church when the “spirit of God touches [her]” (749). Mama has a deep, rich personality, and although she has not lived an easy life, the rough life she has lived has turned her into a strong woman. In comparison to Mama, Dee and Maggie have had much more comfortable lives. Dee, however, has made a point of making sure her life was not the country life. After she left the area she told Mama she would always visit, “but would never bring friends” (745). She never really fit in with her family or the culture in her country town. She is the only one of the three women with a college education. She moved away to the city to go to school and has not looked back. Dee has joined the movement of black people to go back to their African roots, which for her, includes adopting a more African name, “Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo.” Dee is a small town girl, who has grown up and become an urban queen.Maggie, on the contrary, has accepted the country life, but has had a more difficult youth than Dee. It seem s that she was never very confident, probably as a result of living in Dee‟s shadow, but her lack of confidence worsened after a fire burned her badly. Mama describes Maggie as walking with her “chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since th e fire” (744). Although the fire has had a major impact on Maggie‟s body and personality, she still lives a fairly content and practical life, sharing the daily chores with Mama. Some day in the near future she will marry John Thomas, a local man who seems to be a practical choice. She can read, although not as well as her sister. Mama says she “stumbles along good-naturedly, but can‟t see well” (745). It seems that she is not ugly, but not very attractive either. She is a simple girl, who lives a passive life.As much as their life histories are different, so are the three women‟s perspectives on life. Mama is happy with the life she has been given. Although she has not accomplished much materialistically, she is proud of who she is. She is proud that she can do a man‟s work as well as any man. On the night in which the story takes place, Mama and Maggie sit on the porch, “just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house a nd go to bed” (749). It is easy to imagine that this is how the two spend many evenings, and Mama says that after Maggie marries she will be “free to sit here and just sing church songs to [herself]” (745). Her life is not very exciting, but she is happy. Dee has always had a different outlook. Ever since her childhood she has been determined to make something of herself and her life. Maggie thinks that Dee has “held life always in the palm of one hand, that …no‟ is a word the world never learned to say to her,” (743) and she is probably right. While it seems that Mama‟s ideal in life is to make the best of what she has, it seems that Dee‟s ideal is to make sure what she has is the best. She sees herself as in control of her life, and believes she has the ab ility to do anything she wants with it. Mama tells of how, “Dee always wanted nice things,” and then explains that she pretty much always got them (744). Dee is the type of person who is “determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts” (745). This at titude shows in the story when she insists on taking the churn top and dasher, and then wants the oldest, most precious quilts, despite the fact that Mama has promised the quilts to Maggie. All that matters to Dee is that she gets what she wants, which basically defines her outlook on life.Dee probably sees the quilt battle as easy to win, because Maggie, on the contrary, is used to not getting what she wants. She tells Dee that she can have the quilts, “like somebody used to never winning anything or ha ving anything reserved for her” (748). She has accepted life as it is, and does not expect to be considered special in any way. As sad as that is, it is because, “this [is] the way she knew God to work” (749). While Dee got away from the fire unscathed, Maggie escaped with her life, but with burns down her arms and legs. Dee was always smart, while Mama says that, “like good looks and money, quickness passed [Maggie] by” (745). Life has not been as kind to Maggie as it has to Dee, and Maggie is well aware of this sad fact.Perhaps the biggest difference between the three women is their idea of history. Mama sees history in the practical things, and as a string of memories. The quilts are a perfect example of this, as Mama hopes that Maggie will put the quilts to everyday use. Mama finds history in her memories of people and places. When Dee admires the benches, Mama reminisces that the benches were made by Dee‟s daddy, “when [they] couldn‟t afford to buy chairs” (747). To Mama, the fondness of history in th is memory is her affection for her husband. When Dee admires the dasher from the churn, Mama notes that it was made “from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived” (747). As she sees the dasher, it is as if she is picturing the house, and that tree in the backyard. For Mama, these memories are history. To Dee, history is found in appearances. Dee admires the benches because of the texture, not because her daddy made them. The quilts are another example of her concept of history. She wants the quilts to hang them on a wall andappreciates the concept of hand-stitching, but she certainly cannot stitch a quilt herself. She does not make the personal connection to history that Mama does, which has little to do with Dee‟s age, because Maggie‟s concept of history is much more personal.Maggie cherishes memories and she cherishes tradition. She has embraced oral tradition. When they are discussing the churn, Maggie explains, “Aunt Dee‟s first husband whittled the dash,” and that “his name was Henry, but they called him Stash” (747). It is unlikely that she actually remembers these details from experience; it is more likely that she has heard them from Mama and stored them in her memory as part of her concept of history. Although she cannot reme mber seeing her grandmother‟s clothes that are included in the quilts, as Mama can, Maggie learned how to quilt from her grandmother, and that important connection is what makes the quilts a piece of history for her. The quilts mean a lot to her because of the people they represent, and not merely because of the concept that they were stitched by hand.What it really all comes down to is interpretation. Mama, Dee, and Maggie interpret life and history differently. At the end of the story, Dee makes a comment to Maggie and Mama that they don‟t understand their heritage (749). It is not that they do not understand; they simply see “heritage” as something different, just as they see life. Mama and Maggie see life differently from Dee, and differently from eac h other. Possibly it is Dee who doesn‟t understand that there is more than one way to look at any situation.Black America and Double Consciousness: W.E.B. Dubois and Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"Alice Walker‟s short story “Everyday Use” is a tightly wov en tale that brings together many disparate elements of the story to reinforce the thesis put forward by W.E.B. DuBois that black Americans are trapped in a double consciousness between their African heritage and their American citizenship. Walker‟s story is about the bifurcation between a mother and a daughter, between America and Africa and between the two cultures battling for one identity. Beyond the obvious identity confusion expressed in the character of Dee/Wangero, Walker imbues her story with symbolism that points to the general confusion of identity inherent in the African experience.DuBois equates the experience of black America with striving to create a singular consciousness out of an identity made up of dual perspectives. DuBois writes that “One ever feels his twoness…two warring ideals in one dark body”. Walker‟s story is about this war over identity and she extends it even to the symbolism of the items that Dee wants. Dee urgently desires the ancestral butter churn that her mother still possesses and asks, “Didn‟t Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?” The very fact that the churn was made from a tree, that its identity was forged into something new based upon its labor value from something that was naturally formed, is indicative of the striving for a soul about which W.E.B. DuBois writes. But even beyond that, there is something more to the importance of the churn. The wood that was in and of itself something important and of value was fashioned into a butter churn, an instrument that takes one thing, milk, and transforms it into something else, butter. W.E.B. DuBois speaks of merging without losingany essence and the butter churn is as good a symbol for that striving as any other item that might have been found in the house. For what is butter? Is it milk or is it something entirely new? What is an African-American? Is he African or American or both? Can he be both? If butter isn‟t still milk, then what it is? Alice Walker takes this symbol of merging identities that springs from a mechanism which is itself a forged tool, and refuses to overplay it. Instead, she extends the metaphor even further by having Dee decide to take the churn top and imbue with yet another identity. Dee perhaps sees making the churn top into a centerpiece as an emancipation of sorts; the churn no longer has to do work, it can become merely ornamental. The churn turns one thing into another, just as slavery turned Africans into Americans. But Walker doesn‟t stop there. Her use of symbolism extends to the primary object in the story.What Dee has really come for are the quilts made by her grandmother, quilts that her mother has promised to Maggie and these quilts, though more heavily emphasized than the churn, are equally subtle symbols of the striving for identity. A quilt is by its very nature something with a double consciousness. The quilt Dee wants specifically were made out of parts of old dresses that her grandmother used to wear. The quilt, like the butter churn, is a utilitarian device. However, the quilt differs from the churn in that it is made out of pre-existing utilitarian devices—the dresses—rather than something solid and independent in its identity prior to being made. Beyond that, of course, is the fact that Dee doesn‟t desire the quilts for their intended purpose. Once again, Dee wants to take something that has a use and turn it into an ornamental device. Dee‟s desire to take simple tools and transform them into something greater reflects W.E.B. DuBois‟ fight against prejudice. DuBo is writes that prejudice engenders self-abasement in the black individual. The way to fight back against this self-abasement is by aspiring to culture. Dee considers herself as cultured, and beyond the abased quality of the lives lived by her mother and sister. Maggie would have the temerity to use the quilts to keep warm. Dee recognizes the true quality and value of the quilts. She will hang them on the wall. Taking something that has a use and a purpose and using it for something besides that purpose is the ultimate accomplishmentin high culture. For Dee, the quilts and her ability to use them for decoration rather than for warmth represent her emancipation. That the quilts were once parts of a dress used in the first line of defense the cold—clothing—only serves to make them all the more valuable. The symbolism of warring identities is underlined throughout the story by Walker‟s choice of items desired by Dee. Even more obvious than the symbolism of the items Dee wants in reference to W.E.B. DuBois‟ theory of double consciousness among black Americans is Dee herself. In many ways, Dee is less a fully realized character than she is an embodiment of the struggle for a unifying identity that DuBois so eloquently speaks about. Dee is a character at war not only with her mother and her culture, but with herself as well. This schizophrenia is addressed by DuBois, at least tangentially, when he writes about “the idea of fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather in large conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic.”At this stage of her life Dee has still not learned to achieve this without contempt. Deeclearly shows contempt for her mother, her sister and their entire way of life. And yet she just as clearly hasn‟t really achieved any true emancipation; she hasn‟t achieved a true consciousness of self. Dee accuses her family of not understanding their heritage. She, in fact, returns home in order to retrieve these cultural artifacts which she believes represents her heritage. But her designs and intents are anything but respectful of her heritage. In fact, she desires to put them on display in a way that is really not quite so different from the white capitalist cashing in on ethnic artworks. Dee may have changed her name to the more African-sounding Wangero Leewanikia Kemanjo, but in reality she has become even more Americanized than her family. Mother and Maggie use the objects of their heritage in obeisance to the heritage; that is, the quilts made out of old dresses were a necessity because they could not afford a new blanket or comforter.The heritage inherent in the dresses was passed onto the quilt; everything was utilitarian because it had to be. Either you made a quilt from your old dresses or you froze. That is heritage. Taking a quilt and putting it up on a wall is American waste as its most obvious. Dee may have become Wangero, but she just as well could have changed her name to JC Penney. Dee has successfully conformed to the greater ideals of the American Republic as its worse, but she has done so specifically in opposition to and contempt of her own race. Dee has not successfully found a single self-consciousness that combines her American and her African parts; she instead has merely traded her African for her American. DuBois writes of blacks living a life in which they see themselves “through the revelation of the other world” and this is precisely what Dee does throughout the story. Dee can achieve consciousness only by comparing herself to what she was and her family still is, or against what Hakim-a-barber claims to be. The fact that she is still waging the war to combine the two into one singular sense of consciousness is made apparent by the story itsel f. Dee‟s return to retrieve the items of heritage deemed so important to her can be seen as an unconscious desire to retrieve her heritage and mend the split in her consciousness. While her initial intention may be to turn the churn top and the quilt into high cultural artifacts, she may also be attempting in a subconscious manner to come to terms the fact that she has yet to achieve the singularity of consciousness about which W.E.B. DuBois writes.In “Everyday Use” Alice Walker uses both characterizatio n and symbolism to achieve a unified vision of the battle for identity and self-consciousness faced by blacks in Americans. Slavery brought people from Africa to America and turned them into tools of capitalism and ever since the struggle has been to achieve an identity that combines their lost heritage with their new country. The problem has been compounded by the fact that so much of the heritage imposed upon them in this country has been as what they can do rather than as what they are. Walker successfully uses the symbolism of everyday items for everyday use to underscore this difficulty.。