Everyday Use - Alice Walker

Alice Malsenior Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia she is an African American author and poet. Was the youngest of eight children and was starting writing when she was eight years old privately. In 1952, Walker was wounded in the right eye by a shot from a BB gun fired by her brother and when they finally brought her to a physician a week later, she was permanently blind in that eye. A disfiguring layer of scar tissue formed over it, rendering the previously outgoing child self-conscious and painfully shy. Stared at and taunted, she felt like an outcast and turned for solace to reading and to writing poetry. When she was 14, the scar tissue was removed and she became valedictorian and was voted most-popular girl, as well as queen of her senior class. She got married on March 17, 1967 in New York City to Melvyn Roseman Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights lawyer. Married on March 17, 1967 in New York City. Had one daughter and continues today to be an activist in racism, Sexism and violence. She has written over 20 poems, novels, and short stories combined.

Similarities were that maggie got burned and was shy and seemed self conscious and in real life alice got shot in the eye and was shy about her eye. Also in the story the family lived in poverty and didn't have a lot of nice things and money and neither did she
(1) Everyday use could be about the quilts, when mama said that they don't use them and she would like for maggie to use them everyday. Or it could be that everyday they used something from their heritage. I think she chose it to say that some people use things from their heritage everyday and barely even notice.
(2) Dee describes heritage as things that were made by hand and things that need to be preserved. And maggie and mama see it as things that you use and continue to make or add on to. And I think alice wants us to agree on mama's definition of heritage.
(3) It is ironic because in the beginning her mom set her as a prissy girl that wanted the finer things. And also its ironic because she wears a bright dress, and gold earrings and bracelets but is acting like the black rights type of girl with the african name yet still seems all about style and finer things. (4) If Dee was the narrator I think she would be complaining about the way she was living and the way her mom is and the way she looks. And then change it up and be talking about name change and about how the "white people bring her down".
If maggie was the narrator I think she would talk about what happen to her with the burn. How she feels about her mom and the way her sister acts and that she wishes she was her and talk more about her feelings.(5) Quilts - symbol of their elders and bits and pieces of them
Polaroid - to take pictures of what dee calls "heritage" and how they live.

Butter dish - what dee wanted to use to make like kind of an artistic heritage symbol.

The Tell Tale Heart By Edgar Allan Poe

The narrative in terms of conflict in the story is that the main character/narrator of the story is telling how the old man that he lives with concerns him and makes him crazy with his dull blue evil eye as he puts it and something about the old man and his evil eye drives the narrator to the point of almost being a psycho and a murderer. In the story either the old man or narrator could be the antagonist because of how the story is being told that the old man antagonizes the narrator with his dull blue eye and makes him go crazy but also the narrator could be the antagonist since he is the one plotting the old mans murder and finally committing this murder. But in my opinion I believe the narrator is the antagonist and the old man is the protagonist because even though the old man makes the narrator crazy with his eye I'm guessing it is not the old mans choice to have his eye that way so he isn't doing this to the narrator on purpose that's why I think that. The conflict or struggle that must be resolved is the old mans life it must be taken away to resolve the narrators conflict. The climax of this story could either be the moments before the death of the old man or could be the moments before the narrator gives himself up to the police officers. Since I believe that the antagonist is the narrator then the climax to me would be the moments before the narrator turns himself in because he was so confident that he was getting away with the crime of murder and then it turns out he goes just as crazy as when the old man was alive and reveals he killed the old man and the location of the old man. The conflict of the story is resolved when the narrator turns himself in to the police revealing he killed the old man and that the shriek wasn't really his own. So what I think is that the problem with the narrator that he thought was because of the old man wasn't really because of the old man it was just that the narrator was crazy on his own and his conflict or problem wasn't the old man but himself.