Alex Walker`s "Everyday Use"" is a short story written in the early nineteen-seventies in a collection titled "In Love and Trouble."" It is a glimpse into the life of an elder African-American woman referred to as "Mama " as she is visited by her eldest daughter, "Dee " who has come home to visit. Dee returns to her mother's humble home troubled by what she sees as a history of racial oppression against her family, and details to her mother her new found "African " heritage. Walker uses a variety of literary devices such as diction, symbolism, and irony, to both create the mood of the scene, and emphasize the traits of the characters throughout the story. .
Walker's use of diction both adds to the mood of the story and further details the characters in their own way. When Dee first introduces herself back to her family she shouts out, "wa-su-zo-Tean-o! " as a greeting, showing her desire to connect to African culture by using a Swahili phrase (493). Yet at the same time Walker details the shallowness of Dee`s desire to reconnect as the greeting is pieced together, syllable by syllable, showing that Dee does not truly know how to speak Swahili. The disconnect between Dee`s desire to show her heritage and her true heritage is further shown through Dee`s new name, "Wangero Leewanika Keemanjo " (494). While Dee believes that this new name connects her with her African roots, it is shown that Mama has trouble pronouncing her new name. Mama's difficulty in speaking her daughter`s new name and her insistence that she named Dee, "after your auntie Dicie " shows that Dee doesn't truly want to connect to her actual culture, but rather one that she can create to suit her purposes of seeming cultural (494). Mama is engrained in her culture and expresses it in the colloquial language she uses. Mama uses words like "effort " (instead of afford), and "crabber " (when referring to spoiled milk left in the Churn) which displays her true relation to her heritage which contrasts starkly with Dee`s stuttering (493).