What interests me the most about Dee’s character in “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker is her feeling of oppression from her own name. She never seemed interested in her culture before her transformation into Wangero; instead, she seemed almost ashamed of it. Once she changes her identity, she becomes a new person with a new outlook. This new outlook is one where she looks to materialize the past and turn family belongings into relics, while her mother is living in the past and plans to use the family belongings, i.e. the quilts. Dee never tries to fully realize her culture, so the creates a new one which clashes with her family’s real history.
Dee was previously embarrassed by her mother’s standard of living, and was even happy when their old home burned down, practically ignoring the pain it caused her mother emotionally and sister physically. She previously wrote to her mother, telling her that “no matter where” they “choose to live, she will manage to come and see” them (445). Her condescending tone makes it apparent that she wants nothing more than to have a limited contact with her family. By simply “managing” to visit her mother and sister, her actions seem forces in that she is only visiting them to complete the very basic, and somewhat mandatory, family traditions. But really she wants to have as little to do with them as possible. She expresses this when she adds in her letter that she “will never bring her friends” (445). Her embarrassment of her family has kept her away from them, and therefore, she never embraced her culture or history like her sister does. However, when she changes her identity, her attitude towards her family and culture has changed. She has a newfound interest in her past, but her interpretations are vastly different from her mother and sister.
Dee, now called Wangero, has adopted a new outlook on her culture. She sees the old way her mother looks at African-American history as a weakness. Since Dee believes that her name comes from whites, the “people who oppress” her (446), she disowns it, even going so far as to say that Dee is “dead” (446). Dee feels oppression from her own name without ever really knowing the true history of her name. Her mother, on the other hand, is able to trace “beyond the Civil War through the branches” (446). I truth, Dee’s name comes from her own culture, the African-American culture, and not from a people who oppress her. Her inability to understand the real significance of her own name reflects her inability to understand her real culture. To compensate for her lack of understanding, she creates a “new” culture, with a “new” identity. In order to sustain her adopted self, she must have some evidence and proof of her culture, which is why she wants her mother and sister’s family belongings. She just want the material, but not the history or significance of it, since it clashes with her new culture and identity. (505)
Taylor, nicely said. Dee is a product of the rise in black consciousness, black studies, and black power movements of the late 60's and 70's. Her intellectual interest is understandable, but the sad part is that as a result she has lost touch the family whose strength and sacrifice allowed her to get where she is. She has gone from being ashamed of her origins to "proud" but that transformation hasn't gone deep enough to really lead her to self-knowledge. So she remains a rather bumbling comic character.
ReplyDeleteAsmit, my apologies. I was reading one of Taylor's posts right before yours and I forgot that I had moved on to the next post in my inbox. What I wrote in my comment still stands, but it was rather bumbling and comical of me to address it to the wrong student.
ReplyDeleteMy bad.