Reflection of Everyday Use

The story of Everyday Use basically is a story of family reunion. The story take place during the height of Civil Rights in the South America. There are mother, Dee, and Maggie as the family. Also there is Hakim-a-barber as Dee’s husband or boyfriend. Mother is a fighter. She does every man’s work and rising both of her daughter alone. Dee, is her mother’s pride. Mother put every effort to make Dee study abroad. On the other side, Maggie, the youngest, is a shy girl. Her voice always heard low. Maggie live with mother while her sister Dee study at Augusta. Mother really missed her precious daughter, Dee. She is so exciting at the day where she finally met Dee. But unfortunately, Dee has changed. She is not the person she used to know. Dee change her looks and even her name into Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Dee change her name because she said, “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me.” It turns out that all this time she felt downtrodden by her own family. At the end story, mother opinion about her daughters changed. Dee is no longer her favorite daughter. It is Maggie with her kindness that win mother’s heart so that mother gave her the precious quilt. According to me, Everyday Use means the value of family. Family should be got each other back. Just like mother, who does everything to her family, my mom will also does the same. I guess every mom will also to the best for her daughter. But the point is Dee doesn’t see it. She doesn’t respect her mother’s effort. She forget where she came from. She change her life in order to feel free from her family. And that’s not nice. She might be felt pressure from her mother because she is her mother’s hope. Mother hope that if Dee get a higher education, she can be a better person. The quilt itself as the valuable things become controversial in this story. Because it was made from some tops of grandma pieced before she died, mother really take care of it. Dee sees the quilt as the heritage that she wants to keep. But the heritage itself not the quilt but actually the art of making the quilt. Mother taught Maggie how to make the quilt that has been going from generation so that she can make her own. If I ever have valuable thing in my life, I will take care of it for the rest of my life. And how can I preserve my valuable thing? Definitely, I will put some effort to take care of it. Sample case, I have a gold bracelet that was given by my late grandparents on my sweet seventeen birthday so it has a lot of memory. I can say that the bracelet is my valuable things. I rarely use it, but it doesn’t mean I never use it. I use it several times in the historical day of my life, such as my high school graduation day and in my confirmation day. But other than that, I keep it on the safety box at bank. Every year, I took it out to clean and polished the gold. Just like Maggie that will use the quilt as everyday use so do I that will use my precious bracelet. But the different is I don’t use it every day. If I could choose between Maggie and Dee, I will be Maggie. Because what’s the point to only hang the quilt? It will be useless. I think it is okay for Dee to use it every day as long as she took care of it and be careful when she use it. But if it’s torn, Maggie can fix it since mother taught Maggie how to stitch quilt or she can the new one with her own valuable things. That's just how we look at the heritage, from the finished object or the knowledge we get.