There is a saying that says the past is the past, the future the future and the present is just that, a gift to be used today. Yet many people are not only unhappy with the past and where they came from, but they also want to rush so quickly into the brave new world of their future that they neglect the gift of the present that is before them. On the other hand, they may glamorize a past that never truly existed. In the story Everyday Use, by Alice Walker, the character Dee is the type of person who rushes into the future of her wants and desires and who will only acknowledge a glamorized past. This paper will analyze the character of Dee and demonstrate how she has railroaded into the future without accepting the present family that is before her.
The reader is first introduced to Dee through the eyes of the narrator, her mother, who sees Dee as someone who has always been single-minded in achieving her goals, from leaving home to obtaining the nice things that she wanted. DeeÆs mother describes her as someone who ôwould always look anyone in the eyeö (29). She was determined to be better, to move on from her present circumstances, which she hated, to her preconceived notion of what was better. As her mother points out when she wants nice clothes for example, ô[s]he was determined to stare down any disaster in her effortsö to get a yellow organdy dress or a pair of black pumps (30). This determination shows how Dee is not content with her life the way it is and how much she wants to leave it behind for something better.
Besides being determined, however, Dee is also portrayed as critical of those around her unless they can live up to her exacting standards. For example, the mother describes how Dee ôhated the houseö so much that she just stared in deep concentration as it burned down, while her mother struggles to save Maggie, the younger sister (29). The new house is just like the old one, a small, three-room sh...