《外婆日用家当》中人物分析

1、-作者xxxx-日期xxxx外婆日用家当中人物分析【精品文档】 邯郸学院外国语学院School of Foreign Languages of Handan College英美小说选读学期小论文论文题目： 外婆日用家当中人物分析 Title： An Analysis of Characters in Everyday Use 专 业： 英语师范 _ Abstract：Everyday Use from the collection in Love and Trouble published in 1973 was written during the heyday of the Black P

2、ower movement. Everyday use tells readers the different attitudes of three persons in a family to Africa-American heritage. The portrayal of the characters in the novel is very distinct and vivid. Through the plots, themes and style of this novel, Alice Walker reveals the different and fresh charact

3、er of that era. This paper tries to analyze the characters of Maggie, Mrs. Johnson, and Dee.Key words: Alice Walker Everyday Use Mrs. Johnson Dee MaggieIntroductionEveryday Use for Your Grandmother, this is one of the most famous short stories which written by Alice Walker. This article mainly intro

4、duces the stories of mother, Maggie and Dee. Mother is a very capable woman, and she can do anything, even can do a mans live. Maggie, she is a very inferior girl, she is very inferior of her appearance, so she envies Dee, but she can do nothing to change. Instead Dee is an open girl. She has her ow

5、n thoughts and she will try her best to strive for what she wants. Walker creates three distinctive black female images - mother and her two daughters, Dee and Maggie. They have different attitudes to treat their national culture and heritage. Maggie Maggie is a weak and plain black girl. After a fi

6、re in her home, the scar of burn left on her body. She is not bright just as she is neither good-looking nor rich. She is very self-abased and passive. She thinks that Dee has a firm control of her life. Dee could always have anything she wanted, and life was extremely generous to her. But Maggie da

7、re not fight for her own things, just make a concession blindly. She is so shy that she never raises her head or eyes when looking at and talking to people, and she is always so nervous and restless that she is unable to stand still. She is afraid of the outside world, sealing up herself in the spir

8、it of “prison”, and gives herself spiritual shackles. She is represented by the black women who are wrecked cruel fate and suffered from discrimination and restrictions. They suffered serious damage either mentally or physically.Mrs. Johnson The mother is a working woman without much education, but

9、not without intelligence or perception. She has the typical features of a black working woman. And she is poor but optimistic. Although her optimistic makes her better than Maggie, she also often ready to leave as quickly as possible because of discomfort, nervousness and timidity. And in order to a

10、void white as much as possible, also from discomfort and shyness. In front of national cultural identity, she is smart and sober. She is clearly because she really understood the meaning of culture and heritage and finally makes the right choice for the heritage of the home and black. She is represe

11、nted by the black women who are suffered in their spirit more than in their flesh. They managed to integrate into the mainstream of American society but failed.Dee Dee is a smart, pretty and confident girl. However, she is also a blind, selfish and conceited girl. The narrator implies that books Dee

12、 read to them were written by the white people and full of their language and ideas, falsehood and their way of life. Other folks refer to the white people. By reading those books, Dee forced them to accept the white peoples views and values. Her reading was like a trap, and we were like animals cau

13、ght in the trap, unable to escape. Underneath her voice suggests a repressive and imposing quality in her voice. She imposed on us lots of falsity and so-called knowledge that is totally useless to us. The words washed and burned are used figuratively, indicating large quantities of a destructive na

14、ture. Furthermore, she was determined to face up and defeat any disaster with her efforts. She is afraid of nothing. So she would look at anybody steadily and intently for a long time. At sixteen she had a unique way of doing things. And she knew what the current, fashionable way of dressing was, sp

15、eaking and acting. She even said that the girl called Dee no longer exists. With the new name she is born again. She was named Dee. The words “securely” and “stroking” shows how she cherished the quilts and how determined she was to have them. Later we will learn that the mother offered Dee a quilt

16、when she went she went away to college. At that time she thought the quilts were old-fashioned. Note the change in Dees attitudes toward the quilts. The snobbish Dee says that Maggie is not as well educated or sophisticated as she and that Maggie will not be able to appreciate the value of the quilt

17、s and will use them just as quilts, not as works of art. Finally, she answered the question firmly and definitely as if that was the only right way of using quilts. She is represented by the black women who are get new ideas in the doctrine of Christs initiative. They know how to stick to your own t

18、hings, live your life better and use the concept to “shape the world”.Conclusion Through the conflicts between the characters, the story reflects the conflict of the society to the readers. Dee is a black girl trying to enter the mainstream of America, namely the white world, well-educated but knowi

19、ng little about her culture. Maggie is capable to pass down the precious culture, but she pays the price of living in a less-open environment and giving up high education. And that is the problem. That is Dee who is typical of the conflict between the black and the white world. The novel tells the readers that it is necessary to protect traditional cultures and heritage which are precious and in