“You just don’t understand.”-A Postcolonial Reading of Everyday Use

This paper presents a postcolonial reading of Alice Walker's Everyday Use, a new perspective on this story. The visitors is metaphorically regarded as new “colonizer”, the Other against Mama and Maggie who have finally defended their stance and truly sustained the African culture.


Literature Review
The studies of Walker's Everyday Use are mainly divided into two groups: one group criticizing Dee: the other, on the contrary, supporting Dee. Those who criticize Dee are at the present time takes on the larger portion.
Dee is thought to be prejudicial and superficial. Mama seems more sympathetic than her daughter but her daughter is "looking down on her mother's simplicity and the simplicity of her heritage". 1 Bauser also mentions the daughter, Dee, has not experienced self-awareness, and the mother truly understands and promotes the continuation of their "heritage". Dee actually has turned into a Southerner who wants to do whatever pleases her, condescending over all that is before her. Dee suffers embarrassment along the development of the plot. Critics like Tuten states that Dee's oppressive voice is mute, for Mama has narrated her out of the story altogether. 2 The quilts represent links with Mama and her mother's generations and to a larger extent the African American culture. These quilts are made of scraps of dresses of the grandmothers' as well as a piece of the uniform worn by the great-grand-father who served in the Union Army in the War between the States. Cowart says the situation of Dee(Wangero) is analogous to a visitor of a minority 1 Bauser, M. Alice Walker: Another southern writer [J].Studies in Short Fiction, 1992(2):143-152. 2 Tuten, N. Alice Walker's Everyday Use [J]. Explicator, 1993(2):125-128.
writer who attempts to become an African only succeeding in becoming a phony. Prior to the quilts conflicts wither her mother, Dee's name, clothes, hairstyle, sunglasses, patronizing voice and her companion are all pavements to the quilts conflicts, which adds up to the ignorance of the authentic heritage. 3 Sarnowski points out that the quilt reveals the interconnection with heritage which Dee has not shown but her mother has fostered. 4 Martin also thinks the quilts link sisterhood, empowerment, bonding with nature and history. 5 Language is important in the story. Dee has changed her name into Wangero after her mother has called her. These important names Dee bases her new-found identity on resemble Kikuyu names, but at least two of them are wrongly spelt. Wangero is not a Kikuyu name, but Wanjiru is. It is one of the other original nine clan names of the Kikuyus. 6 Dee is not familiar to but still tries to use those names showing her ignorance of the real heritage and her fantasy of being a real African American. Whitsitt also discusses the quilting image. The value of the quilt in the Afro-American experience is prevailed at large by Walker. 7 Language is so important to the identification of one's own that the refusal to use the original one also means being influenced by the colonist culture.
Seldom mentioned is the animal image. Grusser notes that the value in Maggie and Mama has been possible when looked beneath the surface of things. Maggie's memory is associated with that of an elephant; Dee's voice sounded 3  as "sweet as a bird", hair "like the wool on a sheep and her pigtails compared to "small lizards disappearing behind her ears,";Mama is connected to cow, having a liking for milking cows until "hooked in the side." Dee will make such mistakes like her mother hooked in the side. 8 Those images are helpful for making the characters suitable to a certain image and symbolic of colonist process.
Household items like butter churn, bench, quilts are regarded as decorations in city by Dee. For her, the value is just a matter of fashion to match her furnishings, a waste of the real use value by nature. Mullins thinks these items are just mementos of Dee's false heritage. 9 Some critics present different views. Whitsitt points out neither is Dee rejected nor does Magigie plan to use the quilts on her bed. There exists a doubleness in play and putting the quilts in Maggies's lap, which is not to bring them back home to be used, even if they could be used that way.. Dee provokes the question of value, of economy, of representation. [7] Faith Pullin notes with regard to the quilts, "the mother is ... the true African here, since the concept of art for art's sake is foreign to Africa--all objects are for use. Dee has.., taken over a very Western attitude towards art and its material value". [7] Though mocked by Walker, Dee's aspiration to project herself as sensitive artist of the African American experience is not to blame.

Theoretical Framework of Postcolonism
Postcolonialism is frequently used by critics, teachers and writers, covering a large range of issues(p3). 11 Postcolonialism is continuation of decolonization, carried on in the Western academy, often termed as Postcolonial Studies 12 . Frantz Fanon, whose personal experience as a black intellectual in a whitened world, especially the disorientation he had felt since his first encounter with racism, "decisively marks his psychological theories" about colony. Fanon's chief contribution is his delineation of the colonial subject as both "colonized" and "subject," some "Other" who is unable to assume the necessary role as self. He argues that racism generates harmful psychological constructs that both blind the black to his subjection to a universalized white norm and alienate his consciousness. " A related concept is identity, or "how we define who we are." Literally identity means "same as," but Fanon tells that this identity,created in the past, sustained to the present and remade in the future, is "an ideological construct designed to uphold and to consolidate imperialist definitions of selfhood." Hybridity is deployed in the mestizo culture. Postcolonial studies has also made extensive use of Foucault's ideas. Empire is built upon the imperial discourse. "Discourse" is a "set" be made, "a system that defines the possibilities for knowledge," or the criteria for truth. The determination is "power," which produces classifications of knowledge and defines our understanding. Though power is not always prohibitive, it is productive as well. Catching a criminal is power, but producing the notion of "the criminal" is power in the first place. 13 The acknowledgment and reappearance of women's experience is on the rise after being hidden from the  Dee thus has shown to Mama her visit as discovery of inspirations, as superiority using language they are not familiar with, as owners of all the daily-use items,as representative of neo-colonizers bringing with her newly-found "advanced culture."

Dee's Metaphoric Leaving--the Defeat of Colonizer
Dee's invasion goes on smoothly, the arrival, the demand to take photos, the introduction to her new name, the meal.
Then she turns on the small items to such extent that she could not stop appreciating them with an aesthetic 15 Hoel, H.Personal Names and Heritage: Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use' [J].American Studies in Scandinavia, 1999(1):34-42. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18   The tension is now reaching its peak and Dee's leaving is inevitable, metaphorically meaning the defeat of the colonizer, whose intention and ideology are crashed by Mama and the innocent Maggie.

AS REDEMPTION
Mama is not only waiting for her daughter, but waiting for redemption that her well-educated daughter lifts Maggie and her out of the present or future status. Mama has fantasy that is unknown to neither Maggie nor Dee.
She has deemed her daughter as someone who is capable enough to do her good. She carefully prepares for her arrival, cleaning the yard, waiting anxiously for her daughter.
Fantasy means lack. Mama has always been in need of Dee's closeness even dreaming of their reunion on TV programs. On this program, Dee acts like a dutiful and obedient girl, praised by the host, and then Dee might pin an orchid on her dress. The fantasy only proves one thing that Dee has never been such a daughter. No matter how brilliant she is and she will be, Dee is always self-centered and overbearing that her mama could never get the closeness or kinship that she deserves.
Fantasy has drawn Mama into a imaginative status, but Mama has felt the strong atmosphere Dee brings with her but ironically the arrival has turned out to colonize them.
The hope of gaining redemption is crashed when Dee drives away.

AGGRESSIVE BEARING
Maggie's reaction to Dee's arrival has always been negative. Deep in her heart, she is afraid of her sister.
Mama knows that, and Dee is aware of it for she is the one who causes all the fear. Dee's education background, determination and appearance outweigh that of Maggie, even after the meal Maggie cleans the kitchen. She is paled by Dee in all ways, unable to look at Dee to such a degree. Dee stands for advanced civilization with all the advantages Maggie is in need of. The aesthetic taste has been developed since she was young. However, the taste is not a taste of their own. The taste is influenced by the white society, even her seeking for African roots is out of her plan, just acting on a whim.
Maggie has said a few words in the story, but for the most part she remains behind her mama and keeps silent. She refuses to face her sister directly in that she could remain undisturbed. Her first words are uttered before Dee arrives. She has put on perhaps the most beautiful dress she has and musters up her courage to ask Mama whether she looks good. It it sure that she thinks she looks good in that skirt, but she is afraid of being mocked by Dee. 23 Ibid. The problem is that Dee has expressed the idea of a more civilized circle in a wrong way so that Maggie has not been able to comprehend and accept. All that Maggie sees from her sister is to take and turn down the term "no".

International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS)
Her sister's aggressive attitude has frightened her since always, not to mention the invasive arrival.
Her male companion is another representative of a more advanced society in which the hairstyle, the greeting way and the words are scaring Maggie. It is likely that she has never encountered someone like Asalamalakim. When Asalamalakim is going to hug Maggie, he has frightened Maggie so that she retreats back and escapes from the hug.
This greeting is followed by a second try when Asalamalakim shakes hands with Maggie in a fancy way.
This second greeting has turned on Maggie's defense system once more. She feels being insulted and tries to pull her hand back. How could she understand the way Dee's companion wants to greet and show kindness to her.
The civilized way seems to have no effect on Maggie who wants to get into their circle but fails to agree with their cultural identification.
Zhang points out that a nation's memory is crucial to its members. The breaking of the memory chain means the loss of the whole nation's self-consciousness. The past "self" connected to the present "self" makes a whole self. 24 The quilt conflict has make Maggie a whole self in that she could carry on the national heritage by quilting,