Previous
Imagery
Definition of Irony
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this seems like a loose definition... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how they actually are. If this... read full definition
Irony is a literary device or event in which how things seem to be is in fact very different from how... read full definition
Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Anti-Oppressive Dee:
The situational irony at the heart of “Everyday Use” is the fact that Dee considers herself to be resisting racism and oppression when, in fact, she is indirectly reproducing it. While she is clearly trying to undermine white supremacy by giving herself a new African name (Wangero), dressing in African attire, and embracing her family heirlooms, she indirectly rejects certain aspects of the Southern Black culture she comes from. For example, in renaming herself, she erases her connection to her mom’s sister Dicie, after whom she was named.
Dee’s desire for her grandmother’s hand-sewn quilts also indirectly reproduces racism. This is because she does not want the quilts for their utility, but so that she can hang them up on the wall as art objects, an orientation that mimics how some elitist white Americans aestheticize everyday objects of other cultures. The oppressive edge to Dee’s coveting of the quilts comes across in the following passage (as narrated by her mother):
I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style.
“But they’re priceless!” she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!”
Mama points out the irony of Dee’s desperation for the quilts when, just a few years earlier, she had declined to bring them with her to college because they were “old-fashioned, out of style.” This orientation to the quilts suggests that Dee only wants them now because, at least for members of the Black Power movement like her, they were very much in style. Dee’s declaration that Maggie would “put [the quilts] on the bed and in five years they’d be in rags” hints at Dee’s elitism and class privilege—because she has the economic stability to hang blankets on walls, she judges those who do not as foolish or wasteful.
It is notable that, by the end of the story, Mama finally sees Dee’s desire for the quilts for what it is and forcefully gives the quilts to Maggie instead. Though she may agree with Dee’s anti-oppressive intentions, she does not approve of the impact they are having.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Dee Wanting Heirlooms:
After a lifetime of hating her impoverished family’s small house (and all that it contained), Dee returns home for a visit and suddenly covets all of the family heirlooms—an example of situational irony:
“Oh, Mama!” she cried […] “I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints,” she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee’s butter dish. “That’s it!” she said. “I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have.” She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it clabber by now.
Dee dramatically fawns over “the rump prints” on her family’s benches, sighs over a butter dish, and lunges at a butter churn—which, Mama notes, is likely full of “clabber,” a thick and sour substance that forms when raw milk has been sitting out for too long. Dee's newfound love for these objects is ironic because of her hatred of them in the past and also because they are simple everyday items (the churn, for example, is clearly still in use). Yet Dee is treating them as if they were relics in a museum.
It becomes clear to Mama, by the end of the story, that Dee is not interested in these objects because she respects their utility but because she is fetishizing their history. As such, Mama ultimately rejects Dee’s request for the family’s quilts, giving them to her daughter Maggie instead. This is because Mama knows that Maggie will respect the objects by making use of them, not putting them (or their family’s history and culture) on display.
Related Themes:
