You will, of course, want to cite the story “Everyday Use,” but you might find it difficult to cite the online copies we read in week 2. Use the citation for the original print source: Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” In Love and Trouble. New York: Harcourt, 1973. 47-59. Print. Some possible prompts: These may help you form your thesis, but don’t feel trapped by them—you can come up with your own if you wish. 1. Who do you see as more in touch with her heritage in the story: Dee/Wangero, Maggie, or the Mother? Why? 2. Most of us see the story as setting up an opposition between Dee/Wangero, the daughter who has beauty and brains, and Maggie, who seems to have little except what she has learned at the hands of her grandmother and mother. Is that really what the story is about? Is it possible that the story is about different visions of how African Americans can view, appreciate, and preserve their heritage—a philosophical argument portrayed through characters in a story? 3. Alice Walker grew up the daughter of a sharecropper in very poor circumstances, but she went on to go to college and become very successful as a writer. In a sense, she grew up feeling a little like Maggie, but went on to become a little more like Dee. Who do you think she sympathizes with more in the story? Why? 4. In what way or ways does Susan Farrell seem to disagree with Nancy Tuten? How does each one interpret “Everyday Use”? Which one do you agree with more and why? Format: The essay should follow MLA style in both manuscript formatting and in citation formatting (see the example paper by Anna Orlov, “Online Monitoring: A threat to Employee Privacy in the Wired Marketplace”)
