Title/Author

Theme

Everyday
Use- Alice
Walker

Tradition

Setting

Yard of
the
house

CharactersProtagonist
and
Antagonist

Plot

Conflict

Symbols

Mama

Mama waits
in the yard
for her
daughter
Dees
arrival, she
knows that
Maggie, will
be nervous
throughout
Dees stay.
Dee reveals
she has a
new African
name.
Mama has
to decide
which
daughter
will get the
quilts.

Which
daughter will
get the quilt?

Quilts

Maggie
Dee
Hakim a
barber

Everyday
Use focuses
on the bonds
between
women of
different
generations,
as
symbolized
in the quilts
they fashion
together.
The Yard
The yard
represents a
private space
free of the
regrets and
shortcomings
that have
infiltrated
Mamas life.

The Child
Who
Favored
Daughter

The
Flowers

Racism
Sexism

Lost of
innocence

The
front
yard

Father
Daughter

The
shed

Daughter

Mexico

Dead man
Myop

The story
begins with
a girl who is
dropped off
by a school
bus, She
sees her
father on the
front porch
and instantly
knows that
he has read
the letter
she has
written to
her white
lover. The
father sits
on the porch
with a
shotgun
nearby and
the letter, he
leads her to
the shed
and kills her.

The
Daughter
knows her
father has
read the
letter and is
scared.

The shed

Myop has to
find her way
back to her
cabin, she
stumbles onto
the remains of
a man who had
been killed in a
lynching, she
sees the
brittleness of
his death.

Myop then
leaves the
safety and
peacefulness
of her
family's
sharecropper
and finds
herself about
a mile from
home in
unfamiliar
surroundings.

Flowers

The shed is
where the
father takes
his daughter
for her
beating. The
father leaves
her in the
shed
overnight
and kills her
there.

Myop laying
down her
flowers was a
sign of releasing
her
youthfulness, as
she faced
racism.

Walker, Alice. Everyday Use . Perrines Literature.

Hartcourt Brace College Publishers.1998. 90-97
Walker, Alice. The Child Who Favored Daughter. In Love And Trouble
Mariner Books.1997. 40-49
Walker, Alice The Flowers. Wiki Spaces
Septermber,13,2013. Went to google. http://englishb.hyde.wikispaces.net/file/view/The+Flowers+-+Alice+Walker.pdf

Alice Walker research

Novelist, poet and feminist Alice Malsenior Walker born on February 9, 1944, in
Eatonton, Georgia. Alice Walker is one of the most admired African-American writers
working today. The youngest daughter of sharecroppers, she grew up poor. Her mother
worked as a maid to help support the family's eight children. When Walker was 8 years
old, she suffered a serious injury: She was shot in the right eye with a BB pellet while
playing with two of her brothers. Whitish scar tissue formed in her damaged eye, and
she became self-conscious of this visible mark. After the incident, Walker largely
withdrew from the world around her. "For a long time, I thought I was very ugly and
disfigured," she told John O'Brien in an interview that was published in Alice Walker:
Critical Perspectives, Past and Present. "This made me shy and timid, and I often
reacted to insults and slights that were not intended." She found solace in reading and
writing poetry. Living in the racially divided South, Walker attended segregated schools.
She graduated from her high school as the valedictorian of her class. With the help of a
scholarship, she was able to go to Spelman College in Atlanta. She later switched to
Sarah Lawrence College in New York City. While at Sarah Lawrence, Walker visited

Africa as part of a study-abroad program. She graduated in 1965the same year that
she published her first short story.
http://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939#early-life

After college, Walker worked as a social worker, teacher and lecturer. She became
active in the Civil Rights Movement, fighting for equality for all African Americans.
Walker's creative vision is rooted in the economic hardship, racial terror, and folk
wisdom of African American life and culture, particularly in the rural South. In 1961
Walker left Eatonton for Spelman College, a prominent school for black women in
Atlanta, on a state scholarship. During the two years she attended Spelman she
became active in the civil rights movement. After transferring to Sarah Lawrence
College in New York, Walker continued her studies as well as her involvement in civil
rights. In 1962 she was invited to the home of Martin Luther King Jr. in recognition of her
attendance at the Youth World Peace Festival in Finland. The poems in Walker's first
volume, Once (1968), are based on her experiences during the civil rights movement
and her travels to Africa.
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/alice-walker-b-1944
Alice Walker has been defined as one of the key international writers of the 20th
century. Walker made history as the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer
Prize for Literature as well as the National Book Award in 1983 for her novel The Color
Purple, one of the few literary books to capture the popular imagination and leave a
permanent imprint. The award-winning novel served as the inspiration for Steven
Spielbergs 1985 film and was adapted for the stage, opening at New York Citys
Broadway Theatre in 2005, and capturing a Tony Award for best leading actress in a
musical in 2006.An internationally celebrated author, poet and activist, Walkers books
include seven novels, four collections of short stories, four childrens books, and
volumes of essays and poetry. Walker has written many additional best sellers.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/alice-walker/biography-andawards/2894/

Alice Walker essay

Alice Walker played a huge part in the civil rights movement. Most of her stories take
place in a time where racism was well alive. Walker was also born in Georgia where her
most of her stories take place as well. As a writer, Alice Walker deals with many issues,
most of which concern historical and modern race problems in America. Through this
she brings to national attention the cruelty and inhumane abuse that African Americans
have endured. This general topic can be broken down into many areas that she feels
are important for people to know and to learn from.
Everyday use takes place in one of Alices short story collection In Love and Trouble.
Walker suffered a blinding injury to her right eye when she was young, causing her to
become shy and withdrawn, much like the character of Maggie in this story. Maggie as
well was injured young in the story. Many African Americans were ashamed of their
heritage because they were judged quite often. Everyday use gives us an insightful look
at the way people wrestle with their heritage, and a fascinating example of how far
some will go to shun theirs. The story also takes place in Georgia which we know thats
where Walker is from.
In A Child Who Favored Daughter A father waits with a shotgun on a hot afternoon for
his daughter to walk from the school bus through the front yard. He is holding in his
hand a letter she had written to her white lover. As his daughter approaches, the father
is reminded of his sister, Daughter, who also had a white lover. He then beats her with
a stable harness and leaves her in the shed behind the house. The next morning, failing
to make her deny the letter and struggling to suppress his unnamable desire, he kills
her. As the story ends, he sits in a stupor on the front porch. The main theme in this
story is about a black child who long to escape and be free but who are denied that

freedom by the society they live in and by her dad. Black men are portrayed in a
negative light and are made to be the oppressors of black women. Walker growing up
was very afraid of her grandfather who one day chased her grandmother around drunk.
In the story The Flowers Alice Walker losing her eye sight became is huge part in
Walkers loss on innocence as a child. Myop which is the main character in The
Flowers loses her innocence as she discovers what gruesome things surrounded her
dealing with slavery. Walker participated in a lot of Civil Rights movements which is why
most of her stories have to do with slavery. The story began with summer and it ended
as: "Then the summer was over." The summer in the story represents Childhood.