Literary Response : Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Characterization Makes Imagination

A Literary Response to Alice Walker’s”Everyday Use”

           

            People have many character and personalities that make people can be a mystery for them also for themselves. Characterization of characters in the story makes us understand the character deeply. If we understand enough, we will be like the character itself, we will comprehend fully about the character, even the characters were the fiction. In this case, Characterization on Alice walker`s “Everyday use” was the successful literary elements, because from characterization we know deeply about the narrator, Maggie, and Dee with just a sprinkle of description words around the text. Characterization is the best literary elements for life reality story because we need to use our emotion to feel the story and also characterization can create foreshadow to characters in the future.

            First, the narrator described Maggie as the shy and diffident person, as you can see how the narrator knows a lot about his daughter. “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: She will stand hopelessly in the corners, homely and ashamed . . . “In your mind you will keep Maggie as the diffident girl, and the text will justify your mind about Maggie, Another proof is “. . . chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since . . . “From that text you can imagine, commonly a person that the narrator described is the shy, bashful and diffident girl. You will know what happen next to Maggie from that text, “He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right up against the back of my chair.” The text is very consistent from what the narrator was described about Maggie.

            Second, The Narrator described Dee and it foreshadows her in the future. You see that the narrator describe Dee as the ignorant person. “Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. And Dee, I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree . . . “She don`t care about her house, daughter, anything. She just cares about herself, explained in “She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us . . . “It foreshadow what happen to Dee in the future. In the future Dee was very enthusiast to the black pride and she also changed his name into Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo that belongs to African name.. But she was forgotten what is important behind that, the family. No matter from which race you are, you can`t change your family. Understand your family rules, your family custom, and tradition. You must be known about McDonald, it has many branch around the world. They still hold their original style. How about the branch restaurant? It still hold their style but they adjust themselves depend on their place.

            In conclusion, Characterization makes us easier to know deeply about the character, to make a relation between the reader and the character. Besides that, it also even give foreshadow for what will be happen to the character in the future. At the point, Characterization creates imaginations of readers.

           

Reference:

Walker, A (1973). “Everyday Use.” Retrieved March 3rd, 2015, from             http://www.dunbarhs.org/ourpages/auto/2013/8/29/50829982/2%20Everyday%20Use%20Student%20Text.pdf

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