ork Times bestsellers list for twenty-five weeks and claimed the American book award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In the late eighties and early nineties she published several books. She has been instrumental in bringing about awareness of female genital mutilation, through writing, film and lecturing around the world. (Yahoo.com.)Also like the Color Purple, Alice Walker wrote the short story, Everyday Use, in 1973. The story deals with social realism and the attitude of a character called Dee that is the irony and focal point of Walkers entire story. Dee can be seen to represent a materialistic, complex, and modern way of life where culture and heritage are to be valued only for their trendy-ness, and aesthetic appeal. Dee can also be portrayed as aggressive, greedy and self-serving, to the point of total lack of regard for her family. Although her family feels the force of Dees scorn, they admire her fierce pride, but clearly knows that she has not arrived at a stage of self-understanding.In Everyday Use, Dee can be seen to be materialistic and complex towards her culture and heritage of her family. Dee lives in a house that is described as ugly and very simple, with a tin roof and with, no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. Dee despises this house and hates the unsophisticated life of poverty and hardships that her family lives in. Even though Dee rejects the house, at the same time she wants various objects in the house, a churn top, a dasher, and several quilts, which are just as meaningful to the family history as the house. Dee exclaims, theyre priceless, its because they are handmade by her family and she envisions some sort of monetary value. But what is really priceless is the actual ability to make these items. Dee does not have this ability nor does want it. She has rejected this ability, part of her true heritage, and that is Dees materialistic ...
