《外婆的日常用品》中人物分析

邯郸学院外国语学院

School of Foreign Languages of Handan College

英美小说选读学期小论文

论文题目： 《外婆的日常用品》中人物分析

Title： An Analysis on Characters in Everyday Use

专 业： 英语（师范） _

An Analysis on Characters in Everyday Use Abstract: Everyday Use from the collection in love and trouble published in 1973 was written during the heyday of the Black Power movement. Everyday use tells readers the different attitudes of three persons in a family to Africa-American heritage. The portrayal of the characters in the novel is very distinct and vivid. They are Mom, and her two daughters, Dee and Maggie. Through the plots, themes and style of this novel, Alice Walker reveals the different and fresh character of that era. This thesis includes three persons aiming to give a comprehensive analysis of the protagonist.

Key words: Alice Walker Everyday Use Mom Dee Maggie

Introduction

《外婆的日常用品》中人物分析

In Everyday Use, Alice Walker argues that an African-American is both African and American, and denies the American side of one's heritage is disrespectful of one's ancestors and consequently harmful to one's self. Alice Walker is the eighth child of sharecropper parents, and grows up in the midst of violent racism and poverty, which influences her later writings. She uses the principal characters of Mama, Dee(Wangero) and Maggie to clarify the themes. Everyday setting around the year 1970 is a story about a poor black mother and her two daughters and Maggie. Dee, the elder daughter, goes to a college in the north, and visits her home one day and brings her boyfriend. The other daughter, Maggie, still lives with her mother. Maggie is slow, disfigured and simple-minded in contrast to Dee, who is clever, beautiful but arrogant type of woman. For the quilt, the mother has left for Maggie as wedding present. She refuses to give Dee the quilt to hang it in the room because she cannot fully understand the value of the heritage. By discussing the cultural and historical context of the story and through detailed reviewing of the content, the thesis tries to deeply analyze the theme of Alice Walker's Everyday Use, and it shows that the writer wants to tell readers two mistakes in Afro-Americans' cultural identification: escaping from the painful history and blind seeking for African culture.

1. An Analysis on Mom

Mrs. Johnson is a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. Her stout body and simple and honest character are typical of the African women, which are also heritages. Doing very hard work, like “One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat

1

《外婆的日常用品》中人物分析

hung up to chill before nightfall” and “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.”, she sustains the whole family laboriously. From her, readers see the glittery virtue of hard working of the black women and the great love of a mother as well. Though she does not accept much education, she knows what is good and what is bad. Mama is also a far-sighted and nerved woman, who can try her best to collect money for her daughter’s education and future in the church. Unimaginably, she is a woman who talks to others always with one foot raised in flight, with her head turned in whichever way is farthest from them.

2. An Analysis on Maggie

Her little daughter Maggie is a shy and conservative girl inheriting the culture from her mom. “she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs.” Maggie’s features symbolize the suffering and tortuous life of the black people. While without the beauty and braveness, she knows the exact way of their life. And she knows how to mend it. So “I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero’s hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap.” She is homely, and her leg is lame after their house was burned to the ground. Maggie hates neither life nor Dee. She holds a different attitude on the traditional culture. Maggie appreciates the gift far more than Dee ever could, and she knows more about the traditional value of culture.

2

《外婆的日常用品》中人物分析

3. An Analysis on Dee

Compared with Maggie, Dee is bright, confident, literal and beautiful and has held her life always in the palm of one hand. She cares much about the outer appearance. “Her feet were always neat-as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style.” At 16 she has a style of her own and knows what style is. So her attitude to the appearance is also reflected on the quilt. Her attitude to the traditional culture is superficial and to the family traditional relationship is bland and ignorant. To some degree, she is a arrogant, selfish and specious woman. When her house is burned, she does not care. “I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of; a look of concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot brick chimney.” She stands for a group of people who just only pursue the external usage and neglect the internal value.

However, Dee has a big change later. Influenced by the Black Power Movement, she gets interested in her own culture. The house, the bench, the churn and the quilt, all these things that are used to make her disgusted delights her then. Following the “fashion” of the movement, she intangibly and surprisingly finds the “value” of her family. But it is a pity that Dee only formes a shallow view on her culture. She says the language of the East Africa “Wa-su-zo-Tean-o” to her mother, knowing little that they come to America from West Africa. Neglecting the history and the love of the everyday use, she just wants to keep them as ornaments to make a parade. Maggie, to the opposite, has a different view on the culture. Though does not realize the “value” of the everyday use, she knows

3

《外婆的日常用品》中人物分析

everything’s history — who made it, how to use it and how to make it.

Conclusion

Through the conflicts between the characters, the story reflects the conflict of the society to the readers. Dee is a black girl trying to enter the mainstream of America, namely the white world, well-educated but knowing little about her culture. Maggie is capable to pass down the precious culture, but she pays the price of living in a less-open environment and giving up high education. And that is the problem. That is Dee who is typical of the conflict between the black and the white world. The novel tells the readers that it is necessary to protect traditional cultures and heritage which are precious and invaluable. And it is unworthy to chase something fashionable and lose traditional cultures and heritage.

Bibliography

Heol, Hegla. “Personal Names and Heritage in Alice Walker’s Everyday Use”[J]. American Studies in Scandinavia, 1991(1)

Walker, Alice. In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women [M]. Harcourt Brace &Company, 1973

Sperber, Wilson. Relevance: Communication and Cognition[M]. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986

4

《外婆的日常用品》中人物分析

黄炳瑜. 女性自我意识的觉醒——爱丽丝·沃克《日常使用》中的女性形象, 广西师范学院院报: 哲学社会科学版[J], 2003(1)

季静芬. 爱丽丝·沃克的感叹——试析《奶奶的日用家当》的思想内涵[J]. 常熟高专学报, 1999(3)

谢玉娥. 《女性文学研究》[M]. 河南: 河南大学出版社, 1996

张汉熙. 高级英语(修订本)[M]. 北京: 外语教育与研究出版社, 1996第二版

张德明. 多元文化杂交时代的民族文化记忆问题[J]. 外国文学评论, 2001年第3期.

5