Theme of Home and Belonging in Alice Walker's Short Story 'Everyday Use': Critical Essay

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Theme of Home and Belonging in Alice Walker’s Short Story ‘Everyday Use’: Critical Essay

The theme of home and belonging is a wide theme, as has manifested in a number of stories. This is because home, being a central aspect of human existence, gets us thinking of such things as shelter and comfort. By definition, a home is where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family (Oxforddictionaries.com). According to this definition, home is the place where we always seek refuge and safety. Everyone wants to attain as much of these as possible. This is the theme that keeps the human beings thinking of such questions as who they really are, why they are the way they are, and why they strive belong to some group or home. The aim of this paper is to look into this theme as it manifests in the story Everyday Use by Alice Walker.

The story Everyday Use begins with the account of the main character Maggie, who is constantly struggling between several attitudes towards her sister. This has arisen out of her perception of herself that has in turn been affected by the burn scars on her arms and legs. This has left her wondering if she should admire her sister or keep thinking of her physical appearances. Clearly, though she can be said to be having a physical home in which she stays with parents and siblings, she has problems with her sense of belonging to the family. So serious is this situation that it is impacting her physical body: She walks like a lame animal.

Dee feels much at home. She has a physical home, which gives her comfort and safety. In fact, she is so comfortable with this that Maggie thinks life has never known how to say no to her. Besides, she is brighter, more beautiful and has a fuller figure. Despite the fact they happen to have lost their house to fire some time earlier on, she does not happen to have been injured physically, emotionally, or psychologically by the loss. This is the fire that apparently gave her sister the burns that impacted on her self-esteem and sense of belonging hitherto.

The persona of the story herself is physically at home, at least in the current home. However, something keeps bothering her throughout; memories of their former house burning. She says she often vividly hears the flames that razed their house down.as well, she feels Maggies arms trying to stick to her and her hair smoking of the fire, and her dress falling off into the flames that burns their house leaving them homeless for some time. These memories must be disturbing her, so much she often has disturbing dreams at night. That means something to her; being at home physically but emotionally disturbed about the past experiences.

Summing up, all these characters are avenues for the theme of home and belonging manifests. Each of these characters is at their own circle as far as being at home and belonging is concerned. While is comfortable at all circles, two are lacking and important aspect of home and belonging. The peace and sense of belonging is lacking for the persona and Maggie who are still nursing psychological and physical scars respectively. As such, the theme is well portrayed throughout the text, as each of the character is striving to attain the best that can be needed for comfort, safety and belonging. With this knowledge in mind, learning about the story more deeply is even more simplified and demystified.

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