BOOK REPORT
-------Everyday Use
for Your Grandmama
英语09-1班 张 再 奋 709202125
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The analysis of the characters in Everybody Use
To see a world in a grain of sand , a heaven in a wild flower , a culture in a short story .
Everyday use , everyone have , how valuable the quilts was, should have been a prelude of the conflict between mother and daughter . With this mystery , I open the book again , to find the origin of the quilts, to find the inner world behind the black „s life style .
About the quilts . Its was sewed piece by piece by grandma Dee and big Dee and mother. And in both of them were scraps of grandma Dee‟s more than fifty years dresses ,grandpa Jarrell‟s paisley shirt and great grandpa ‟ s uniform worn in the Civil war . I think no one can‟t image that how does the quilts were now . Tiny pieces , colour faded and rough hard-working , in a words , out of fashion and unusefulness. But” that was not the point ”as Dee said . Through the skillful hands and united work , the old pieces turned into beautiful quilts .The style of those quilts have their own pattern . “ One was in the Lone Star pattern, the other was Walk Around the Mountain.” And the point is its made by three generations , its have more particular materials , it was a heritage that belongs to African culture . Those quilts are not only the reflection of the wisdom and diligence of the black women , but also impregrated with the love of the family members .
About the character of mother , Maggie and Dee .
Mother was a typical black women . “large , big-boned woman with rough , man-working hands” and poor education. Attentive working like making the yard like
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an extended living room . Doing man‟s work like “kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as man “. Hard working like “ breaking ice to get water for washing ” and knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer”. She supported the whole family . As a good mother ,she always do nothing even her Dee force words , lies and other folks habits upon her . but she pround of her daughter without any reason. She always dream a dream to see her elder daugher Dee on TV shows even she need to faced lots of people . But from her “raised foot in flight ”we can kown she is a timid woman , seems never dare to say “no” to others. But faced with cultral heritage , she overcamed herself and shocked everyone . She refused to Dee‟s ask and gave the quilts to her younger daughter finally. For her tradditonal attitude towards to their African culture, she hold the old way .
Maggie is a hopeless girl as timid as her mother . “ she has been like this , chin and chest , eyes on ground , feet in shuffle , walked like a lame animals. ” .She was a shy and conservative , inheriting the culture form her mother without beauty and braveness , she knew the exact way of her life. And she never strive for anything with her sister . “ she think sister has held life always in the palm of one hand , that “no ” is a word the world never learned to say to her . ” even to quilts . “ she can have them , mama ” just like she never winning anything or having reserved for her . “I can remember grandma without the quilts ”. How poorly the Maggie was , how feelingly the word was ! It seems that I can see her greater soul behind her thiner figure . Because she knows that the best way to use them should as the way the black should do . In her hand , the quilts could hold that the family love , and pass down from
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generations with the traditional living way of black people .
Dee , mother‟s elder daughter , Maggie‟s elder sister , is a black girl who trying to enter the mainsteam of American. But she was the different one . She was a brave and fashioable girl , as mother said “Hestation was no part of her nature .” and „no‟ is a word the world never learned to say to her.” She know how to be herself without any influence form her mother . “she was determind to stare down any disaster in her efforts ”. Accepting the well-educated and culture of the white people , but knowing little about her own culture , despised the black and even hated her identity. She hated their old house very much and did not want to bring her friends to her mom and sister . The infection of the white‟s culture made her ingoring the love and beauty of her family and her race . And she never understood her mother‟s love but returned by detesting and leaving the family . After infulenced by the Black Power Movement , she got interested in her own culture . The simple and crude house , man-made benches , milk-churn and “everything delighted her ”. By this “fashion ”of the movement , she intangibly and surprisingly found the “value” of her family . But the pity is she just formed a shallow view on her culture without knowing the history and her African culture . She just followed “fashion” without realizing the real value of the culture . Even about the quilts , “hang them ” seems the only way to reserve it as she said , she just know who made it , how to use it and hot to make it . Contrasted from Maggie in her inner space . In fact , the way she own the quilts is a form of showing , showing off how much she loved the family , but this kind of behavior was exactly against the African culture , and that was why mother gave the quilts to
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Maggie at last . I think it is no need to make the further analysis this time .
This moment , it seems I was sank into their life , entangled in their conflict . Living American , being educated in American and attemping to succeed in American , they would inevitably forced by the white people to accept the opinions and living way of the white . So it‟s possibly make them forgetting or despising or abandoning their culture . The disdaining and banishing to the blcak culture from the white world is the main reason of that . Dee was a successful representative of the conflict between the black and the white world. Until now , I think , all the things are clearly . Behind different attitude towards to their own culture , the conflict between the black and the white is the main reason.
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