Your house burned down years ago. All you’re left with are burn scars that remind you of two things: your looks are marred, and when you narrowly escaped your own death you realized your sister was perfectly content standing by the sweet gum tree in the front yard instead of rushing to your rescue. That’s okay, though. That’s typical of any family, you think. Every family buckles under the pressures of conflict.
Not quite.
While this is the story of Maggie — Mama’s daughter, Dee’s sister — in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” it’s not everyone’s story. Or at least it doesn’t have to be.
Let’s step aside for a moment and consider real life. This week in Jacksonville, Alabama, a small college town that’s just about a home away from home to me, couples huddled in hallways, families rushed to storm shelters, kids cried in fear, and the prayerful called on divine protection. An EF3 tornado tore its way through the evening darkness damaging and destroying dormitories and apartment complexes, classroom buildings, church properties, family homes, sports facilities, a university library, and businesses. Some people were injured, but no one was killed. That’s about glass quarter-full, but some optimism is better than none.
Spann, James (@spann). “From Chuck Parker.” 20 March 2018, 4:26 AM. Tweet.
I saw a picture of a hallway (right) where a family had retreated for safety. An 8-inch steel pipe had been thrust through the walls of the house and rested inches from the place where the family sat to ride out the storm. I saw another picture of a three-story college apartment complex that was missing several-rooms-worth of its third floor. I read about a college softball player rushing to the locker room to avoid certain death as she witnessed the storm coming.
The common theme here is conflict. It happens. But it’s less about handling conflict when it happens; it’s about handling it after it happens.
In “Everyday Use,” Mama’s and Maggie’s contention with Dee mostly comes to light when Dee returns home, which doesn’t typically seem to be with an intent to learn about the progress, condition, and needs of her family.
As long as Dee’s not home, the conflict remains latent. When she shows up, the storm brews.
Dee, who Mama basically deems as smarter, more attractive, more confident, and more likely to do things with her life than Maggie, doesn’t seem to get as much direct praise from Mama as you might think. Dee visits home from college (an experience only afforded due to Mama’s petitions to her church) with her boyfriend Asalamalakim and says she’s changed her name to Wangero. Instead of scolding her, Mama reluctantly swallows Dee’s newfound, African-sounding identity and talks through a conversation in which Dee — at least to Mama — openly says her family’s views are uneducated and ignorant. So naturally the conversation turns to a request made by Dee — she wants her grandmother’s quilt, which Mama is deciding to pass on to one of her daughters. Mama leads the reader to believe Dee just wants the quilt to be like a trophy or museum artifact to represent her African heritage instead of an emblem to treasure one of her greatest family members.
On the surface, Maggie and Mama exhibit signs of interpersonal conflict: anger, jealousy, disappointment, disbelief, shock, complacency, dejection. Beneath the surface, deeper feelings of embarrassment, rejection, incompetence, and uselessness resonate from Mama’s narration.
Dee’s visits home almost need some sort of emergency alert announcement. With little notice, she brings a tornado-like impact on the emotions of her mom and sister.
The advice I’d give either the victims of the Jacksonville tornado or Mama’s family is this: Recognize some suffering as unavoidable. What you do in the moments of conflict and calamity can make a difference in limiting the enduring pain which succeeds it. Don’t try to fight it. Don’t ignore it, either. Don’t provoke it. Do your best to diminish it. And after the brunt of the conflict is over, try to resolve it rather than sweep it under the rug. Find ways to make the time of conflict a learning experience that builds character, strengthens bonds, and develops empathy for others involved.
Houses can easily be rebuilt; homes not so much.
Framing the Assignment: My students have just recently finished reading two very different stories, Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.” In class we’ve discussed how the two stories relate by demonstrating that the environment (i.e., setting) of a story can have a significant impact on its conflict. In “Everyday Use,” the story’s conflict escalates when a mother’s college daughter returns to her mother’s house where she and her family can’t ever seem to get along — where disagreements and prejudices persist. In “To Build a Fire,” a subzero Yukon Territory serves as the environment in which an ignorant gold-seeking traveler painfully slowly digresses to eventual hypothermia and subsequent death. For the related assigned post, students are to create a narrative, in poem or short story form, that illustrates the potential for environment (i.e., setting) greatly intensifying conflict. This poem represents the conflict I face occasionally at the railroad tracks on Coleman Road. It never fails: When my kids and I are running behind to drop them off at their schools and for me to make it to work (at another school) on time, the train emerges from seemingly nowhere to slow us down. The sound devices and rhythm of the poem intentionally mimics the sound of a coming train.
Early February. There’s no better time to go to the doctor’s office illness-free to get a physical for work. You definitely get the most for your money.