The main conflict in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" deals with the rural-urban conflict of language. Whereas Mrs. Johnson is uneducated (never learned to read and write) and descended from a long line of self-sufficient, tough matriarchs, she is distrustful of language. She is a country woman, a woman of few words, a woman of action: she "sweeps" and "butchers."
Mrs. Johnson, though she is the narrator, is not comfortable in the role. She does not like talk. She knows that appearing on the Johnny Carson talk show with Dee is an unrealistic fantasy. She knows that the urban viewers would not want to see and hear a rural woman in overalls struggle to find the right urban words to say. They would want to hear and see Dee.
Maggie is even worse with words than her mother. She does not speak at all, only grunts, "Unnhh." She is disenfranchised of all language, resigning herself to be a domestic the rest of her life.
When Dee returns, her language has changed from rural to urban. Worse, it's become trendy and polemic as a result of her Afro-Muslim-Black Nationalism. Her words are foreign to Mrs. Johnson. When Dee demands the heirlooms, Mrs. Johnson does not like her urban, demanding tone: it is privileged instead of acquiescent.
In the end, Mrs. Johnson gives Maggie the heirlooms; more, she gives Maggie her voice as matriarch. Mrs. Johnson wants Maggie to speak up more, and if she is given the title of matriarch, her mother knows this will happen. Mrs. Johnson's narrative voice even deletes Dee from the end of the story. The end focuses entirely on Maggie and her, the rural matriarchs who distrust urban demands.
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