In "Everyday Use," because the narrator alludes a few times to the house that had burned down, as well as the scars left on Maggie's skin, it's worth taking a look at that event--even though it occurred long before the action of the story takes place and doesn't seem to have much to do with the main struggle over the quilts. However, the fire clearly left Maggie with some emotional scars, too, which might explain why we see her skulking around the house, always timid, while her sister Dee seems to be free-spirited, physically immaculate, and bold.
So let's have a look at the moment the narrator recalls the burning:
“I see [Dee] standing under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of; a look of concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot brick chimney. Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes? I’d wanted to ask her. She hated that house that much.”
Okay, so we know that Dee hated the "dingy gray" house, that she stood there calmly while it burned, and that Dee's mom knows all of that, too.
So far, those are the facts. If we want to know why the house burned, we have to make a leap in logic (an inference, or a good guess).
If Dee hated the house and stood there watching it burn, then maybe she's the one who set the fire.
The follow-up question, then, becomes why--and if we think of the house as a symbol of the narrator's old-fashioned family values and traditions, then it makes a lot of sense for Dee to want to destroy it, since she's determined to embrace a completely new way of life and leave her family behind.
No comments:
Post a Comment