Use

     The short story "Use" by Alice Walker describes the story of a family that is torn apart. It feels like they are bound together due to their blood relation and the fire that burned their house down many years ago. The mother in the story's daughter, Dee, is held to a higher standard than her sister, Maggie for the majority of the story. Dee is unattainable, and yet at the end of the story, the mother denies her the grandmother's quilts. It seems like Dee has always been ashamed of her culture, but when she comes back to visit the family, she's using her culture as a novelty. It's sort of like a toy. She changes her name and wants to hang up the old quilts for show. I think the mother didn't give into Dee's wishes this time because she sees that her culture is for show, as opposed to her actually experiencing her culture like Maggie.

Comments

  1. RickyDecember 20, 2020 at 8:58 AM

    Good blog post. You summarized the story very well in a short paragraph - something I struggle with! As you said, "the family is bound together due to their blood relation and the fire that burned their house down many years ago," which essentially everything falls back on throughout the story. The house fire was a major incident in all of their lives. Mama and Maggie were caught in the fire while Dee was outside - almost suggesting that she might have set the house on fire. That Dee desperately wanted THAT change, and through destroying the family house, she thought she would become a different person as she later on portrays herself as. She almost tries a little too hard in the end to be THE change of her lifelong wanders. I like how you said that she uses the culture she came from as a toy. She does not see true value to the culture and the heritage. Story ends with Mama not giving Dee the quilts for this reason as well - she realizes that Dee doesn't see the real value in something that has been passed down for generations.

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