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Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Walker’s writing style in “Everyday Use” is both colloquial and literary. Its colloquial nature comes across in the way Walker captures how Mama, the narrator, would actually speak as a Black woman in rural Georgia. Its literary nature comes across in the rich figurative language that Mama uses. Both of these elements are evident in the following passage, as Mama watches her daughter Dee arrive for a visit:
It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style. From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath. “Uhnnnh,” is what it sounds like. Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your foot on the road.
Here, Mama combines informal language (like describing Dee’s feet as “neat-looking” and capturing the sound Maggie makes as “Uhnnnh”) with figurative language, such as describing how Dee’s feet looked “as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style,” how Hakim-a-barber’s beard looked “like a kinky mule tail,” and how the sound of Maggie sucking in her breath was like “when you see the wriggling end of a snake just in front of your foot on the road.”
This combination of stylistic choices is significant because it demonstrates that even though Mama is uneducated, she still has a sophisticated and artistic relationship to language. While Dee may look down on her mother for living in poverty in rural Georgia, Mama’s narration indicates that she has a rich and perceptive understanding of the world.
Related Themes:
