The story of Alice Walker, entitled “Everyday Use”, was published in 1973, to focus on the tradition of quilting in African American women, which was prevalent for a long time (Whitsitt 443). The quilt has become a cultural artefact for the African Americans, making it a “symbol of gossipy women’s sewing circles” (Whitsitt 143), which was evident back in the 1960s. It also became the “central metaphor of American cultural identity” (Showalter 215). In the short story of Alice Walker, the quilt represents a creative legacy that they come to inherit from their maternal ancestors, who for them carry the centermost value of who they are as a person. In this story, it is evident that the quilt symbolizes not only a cultural artefact but an ancestral heritage that is full of value, blessing and sanctity.
The Use of Symbols
In the story “Everyday Use”, Alice Walker uses a number of symbols, to metaphorically signify things that occur within the society, especially those within the American environment, particularly the African Americans of the 1960s. That era was when African American women began reforming, as they identified themselves as part of the ruling class.
The Quilt. One of the symbols that was used in the short story of Alice Walker is the quilt. As Barbara Christian stated, the quilt represents “the creative legacy that African Americans have inherited from their maternal ancestors” (3). For African Americans, the value of the quilt is very treasured that it represents more than just a figure in the story. Sam Whitsitt says that the quilt is even the centermost essence of the story, in which the story is being represented as “a figure of the quilt” (Whitsitt 443). It is more than merely a figure sign of the creativity of women, but even as “the very ground of a specifically women’s world” (Whitsitt 443). This is because quilts are usually taken as resources used in reconstructing the experiences, or “a record of their cultural and political past” (Cash 30). They are art forms that relay the voices of women, such as the voices of Mama, Grandmother Dee, Aunt Dicie, and Maggie. Over the years, what they experience they transform into works of art—the quilt, which reflects their feelings, wishes, and experiences. For this, the quilt is something that is a heritage to the African American family, as it stresses kinship, folk culture, and the role of their women in their history as part of the old tradition.
Secondly, quilting is likewise seen as an art of storytelling, as the patches usually depict the actual experiences of the women designing the quilt. It is actually “a record of their cultural and political past” (Cash 30). They are important art and cultural forms, in which the African American women unconsciously express their voices—their thoughts, beliefs and feelings—in the stitches of their quilts. For this, historians like Elsa Barkley Brown and Bettina Aptheker were able to depict everyday issues in the designs of many quilts (Cash 30). Cash quoted the words of Aptheker when she stated, “women’s culture, quilts, poems, stories, and paintings provide a clear interpretation of their actions and beliefs on their terms” (30). Quilts are therefore, cultural guides to how African American women lived their lives in the past, as dictated in the designs of the quilts that they had made.
The Yard. Another symbol that was used in the short story of Alice Walker is the yard. In the story, the yard symbolizes a place where there is peace and prosperity, free of regrets, and a place for happiness and the finding of one’s true identity. This is seen in the story when Walker pictures how the yard looks like. As Mama says in the story,
I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house. (Walker 1)
A yard such as this would have to be so special that it is akin to a dreamy place, where there is peace, freedom, and comfort to welcome people, such as her daughter Dee, who is about to come home from another world. It is in this blissful escape that the story starts and ends, for it symbolizes home and their heritage—their cultural home, as well as the home of their family. It is a place where they find themselves in peace, where they find their identity while waiting for the breeze that symbolizes the wind of lifetime—or time itself. Time and history, however, do not come inside the house, since time is only depicted in nature, and inside the building are things that symbolize heritage. In this yard, time is not locked to things of the past but is made to go on freely like the breeze, going to whatever course time brings them to.
Secondly, the yard also symbolizes an extension of the living room, where the guests are first being greeted, and they come to witness the heritage of the family seen in the quilts and the benches and churns. It is a place where the family gathers, an “extended living room” (Walker 1), as described in the short story. It is where the family is; it is home. For this, Dee wants to include the house and the yard in all the pictures that she takes. As stated,
She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard, she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house. (Walker 3)
It is as if the yard represents a scenery that is closest to their hearts, which they want to witness and remember once they leave the place. It represents the entire place of heritage, which Dee would not want to be a part of, as she takes shots of the scene without herself included in the picture. For her, the yard is not a heritage but simply a “framed experience framed and institutionalized art—her Polaroid world” (Whitsitt 449).
Conclusion
There are a number of symbols that are being used in the story of Alice Walker, entitled “Everyday Use”, such as the quilt and the yard. The quilt symbolizes the creative legacy, the very ground of women’s world. It is a relay of their cultural and political past. On the other hand, the yard symbolizes heritage a place of peace, comfort, and freedom. It is a cultural home where the wind roams freely around the yard. For this, the quilt is represented as a cultural artefact that is meant to be used every day, and should not be set aside nor repressed but should roam around the yard like the breeze. Like Mama who hands the quilt over to Maggie, instead of handing it over to Dee, it reflects that heritage and cultural legacy are things that should be handed over to generations by applying them constantly in everyday use. For if not, it will wither away and will come to die, when they are left behind to people who do not use it consistently. Heritage is not constructed and preserved like a frame, but is used in the everyday world to be seen and experienced by people, who should live their culture and their heritage as part of themselves.
Works Cited:
Cash, Floris Barnett. “Kinship and Quilting: An Examination of an African-American Tradition.” Journal of Negro History 80.1 (1995): 30-41.
Christian, Barbara T. “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1994.
Showalter, Elaine. “Common Threads.” Women Writers: Texts and Contexts Series. Ed. Barbara Christian. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1994. 195-224.
Walker, Alice. Everyday Use. N.d. Intensive English 1. 24 July 2015 <http://intensiveenglish1.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/0/4/13041485/everyday_use_full-text.pdf>.
Whitsitt, Sam. “In Spite of It All: A Reading of Alice Walker’s Everyday Use.” African American Review 34.3 (2000): 443-459.
