Saturday, May 31, 2014

Which of the three Johnson women in "Everyday Use" undergoes the most personal growth?

Without question, Mama is the character who undergoes the most personal growth in the story. She begins the story with a dream of being reunited with her daughter, Dee, on a television show,



where the child who has "made it" is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father [....]. On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other's faces [...] [and] the child wraps [her parents] in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help.



She seems to want to please Dee, or to, at least, not be a source of embarrassment to her. By the end of the story, however, having agreed to give Dee a number of items that Dee has never cared about before, things that Mama and Maggie still use, Mama's perspective on her daughters changes. Though Mama had promised Maggie some family quilts, Dee insists that they should be hers instead. After a bit of an altercation, Maggie says that her sister can take them. Mama thinks, "She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn't mad at her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work." Maggie has always played second fiddle to Dee; she is used to Dee getting whatever she wants and Maggie takes the leavings. All of a sudden, Mama has an epiphany. She says,



When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. 



Just then, she snatches the quilts out of Dee's arms and drops them into Maggie's lap, shocking them both completely. And at the end, Mama and Maggie sit companionably, feeling very happy, after Dee has left. It seems that Mama has a new understanding and respect for Maggie and it has made them both very content.


Dee ends the story in much the same way that she began: selfish, superior, and ungrateful. Maggie, by the end, seems somewhat happier, but this seems to be caused more by Mama's new understanding and appreciation of her rather than any fundamental change to herself.

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