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A Postcolonial Reading of Everyday Use Zhao Zhiliang International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-2, Issue-5, Sep – Oct, 2017 https://dx.doi.org/10.24001/ijels.2.5.2 ISSN: 2456-7620 “You just don’t understand.”-A Postcolonial Reading of Everyday Use Zhao Zhiliang School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, Yunnan, China Abstract— This paper presents a postcolonial reading of of color in a society pervaded by sexism and racial Alice Walker’s Everyday Use, a new perspective on this oppression. story. The visitors is metaphorically regarded as new “colonizer”, the Other against Mama and Maggie who 1.2 Literature Review have finally defended their stance and truly sustained the The studies of Walker’s Everyday Use are mainly divided African culture. into two groups: one group criticizing Dee: the other, on Keywords— Everyday Use; the Other; African culture. the contrary, supporting Dee. Those who criticize Dee are at the present time takes on the larger portion. I. INTRODUCTION Dee is thought to be prejudicial and superficial. Mama 1.1 Introduction to Alice Walker seems more sympathetic than her daughter but her Alice Walker(1944–) is an African-American novelist and daughter is “looking down on her mother’s simplicity and poet. She brings her travel experience in Africa and the simplicity of her heritage”.1 Bauser also mentions the memories of the American civil-rights movement to an daughter, Dee, has not experienced self-awareness, and examination of the experience of African Americans, the mother truly understands and promotes the mainly in the South, and of Africans. A self-claimed continuation of their “heritage”. Dee actually has turned womanist, she has maintained a strong focus on feminist into a Southerner who wants to do whatever pleases her, issues within African-American culture. Walker won condescending over all that is before her. Dee suffers worldwide recognition with her novel The Color Purple embarrassment along the development of the plot. Critics (1982, Pulitzer Prize; film, 1985), a dark but sometimes like Tuten states that Dee’s oppressive voice is mute, for joyous saga of a poor black Southern woman's painful Mama has narrated her out of the story altogether.2 journey toward self-realization. Among her other novels The quilts represent links with Mama and her mother’s are Meridian (1976) on the basis of her experiences. Her generations and to a larger extent the African American short-story collections include, In love and culture. These quilts are made of scraps of dresses of the Trouble:Stories of Black Woman(1973), and the partially grandmothers’ as well as a piece of the uniform worn by autobiographical The Way Forward Is with a Broken the great-grand-father who served in the Union Army in Heart (2000). She has also written poetry, such as the War between the States. Cowart says the situation of Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth (2003). Many Dee(Wangero) is analogous to a visitor of a minority of her essays are collected in Living by the Word (1988) 1Bauser, M. Alice Walker: Another southern and Anything We Love Can Be Saved (1997). Walker’s writer[J].Studies in Short Fiction, 1992(2):143-152. work deals with the strengths and sensibilities of women 2Tuten, N. Alice Walker’s Everyday Use[J].Explicator, 1993(2):125-128. www.ijels.com Page | 9 International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-2, Issue-5, Sep – Oct, 2017 https://dx.doi.org/10.24001/ijels.2.5.2 ISSN: 2456-7620 writer who attempts to become an African only as “sweet as a bird”, hair “like the wool on a sheep and succeeding in becoming a phony. Prior to the quilts her pigtails compared to “small lizards disappearing conflicts wither her mother, Dee’s name, clothes, hairstyle, behind her ears,”;Mama is connected to cow, having a sunglasses, patronizing voice and her companion are all liking for milking cows until “hooked in the side.” Dee pavements to the quilts conflicts, which adds up to the will make such mistakes like her mother hooked in the ignorance of the authentic heritage.3 Sarnowski points side.8 Those images are helpful for making the characters out that the quilt reveals the interconnection with heritage suitable to a certain image and symbolic of colonist which Dee has not shown but her mother has fostered.4 process. Martin also thinks the quilts link sisterhood, Household items like butter churn, bench, quilts are empowerment, bonding with nature and history.5 regarded as decorations in city by Dee. For her, the value Language is important in the story. Dee has changed her is just a matter of fashion to match her furnishings, a name into Wangero after her mother has called her. These waste of the real use value by nature. Mullins thinks these important names Dee bases her new-found identity on items are just mementos of Dee’s false heritage.9 resemble Kikuyu names, but at least two of them are Some critics present different views. Whitsitt points out wrongly spelt. Wangero is not a Kikuyu name, but neither is Dee rejected nor does Magigie plan to use the Wanjiru is. It is one of the other original nine clan names quilts on her bed. There exists a doubleness in play and of the Kikuyus.6Dee is not familiar to but still tries to use putting the quilts in Maggies’s lap, which is not to bring those names showing her ignorance of the real heritage them back home to be used, even if they could be used and her fantasy of being a real African American. Whitsitt that way.. Dee provokes the question of value, of also discusses the quilting image. The value of the quilt in economy, of representation.[7] Faith Pullin notes with the Afro-American experience is prevailed at large by regard to the quilts, "the mother is ... the true African here, Walker.7Language is so important to the identification of since the concept of art for art's sake is foreign to one’s own that the refusal to use the original one also Africa--all objects are for use. Dee has.., taken over a means being influenced by the colonist culture. very Western attitude towards art and its material Seldom mentioned is the animal image. Grusser notes that value".[7] Though mocked by Walker, Dee’s aspiration to the value in Maggie and Mama has been possible when project herself as sensitive artist of the African American looked beneath the surface of things. Maggie’s memory is experience is not to blame. associated with that of an elephant; Dee’s voice sounded Farrell mentions that the story is narrated by Mama and the perceptions are filtered through her mind and her 3 Cowart, D. Heritage and Deracination in Walker’s views of her two daughters are not to accepted uncritically. Everyday Use[J].Short Story Criticism, 1996(2):171-184. Mama waits for Dee like waiting for the advent of a 4 Sarnowski, J. Destroying to Save: Idealism and Pragmatism in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use.”[J].Papers on goddess than her returning daughter. Mama has displaced Language &Literature, 2012(3):269-286. her own fears onto Maggie and she associates her fear 5 Martin,J. The Quilt Threads together Sisterhood, 10 Empowerment and Nautre in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple with Johnny Carson’s television fantasy. and “Everyday Use”.[J]. Journal of Intercultural Disciplines, 2014(14):27-44. 8 Grusser, J. Walker’s EVERYDAY USE[J].Explicator, 6Hoel, H.Personal Names and Heritage: Alice Walker’s 2003(2):183-185. ‘Everyday Use’[J].American Studies in Scandinavia, 9Mullins, M. Antagonized by the text, or, it takes two to 1999(1):34-42. read Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”.[J].The Comparatist, 7Whitsitt,S. IN Spite of It All: A Reading of Alice Walker’s 2013(37):37-53. “Everyday Use”[J].African American Review, 2000(3):443-459. 10Farrell, S. Fight vs. Fight: A Re-Evaluation of Dee in www.ijels.com Page | 10 International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS) Vol-2, Issue-5, Sep – Oct, 2017 https://dx.doi.org/10.24001/ijels.2.5.2 ISSN: 2456-7620 However, few mentioned the conflicts are results of an be made, “a system that defines the possibilities for ontological colonist society in those studies. The black knowledge,” or the criteria for truth. The determination is culture has influenced Dee, who could be seen as the new “power,” which produces classifications of knowledge colonizer toward Mama and Maggie, the colonized, in the and defines our understanding. Though power is not society. Dee said to her mama, ”You don’t understand.” always prohibitive, it is productive as well. Catching a Does Dee herself understand what this means? A criminal is power, but producing the notion of “the postcolonial reading is in need of understanding the story. criminal” is power in the first place.13 The acknowledgment and reappearance of women’s 1.3 Theoretical Framework of Postcolonism experience is on the rise after being hidden from the Postcolonialism is frequently used by critics, teachers and histories of colonial societies. Many of the fixed writers, covering a large range of issues(p3). 11 representations of non-western women have been Postcolonialism is continuation of decolonization, carried powerfully rejected in a host of contemporary writings, on in the Western academy, often termed as Postcolonial most of which in their different ways refute imaginings Studies12. Frantz Fanon, whose personal experience as a deeply rooted in Western narrations and their subsequent black intellectual in a whitened world, especially the over-simplistic depictions.
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