A Comparison between "Everyday Use" and "Why I live at the P.
"Everyday Use," by Alice Walker, shares some similarities with Eudora Welty's story, "Why I live at the P.O.". These two stories are alike in four significant ways. Both stories are about the conflict between two sisters; and in both stories, one sister returns home after gaining some world experience. In each story, one sister is a self-centered antagonist, and the mother is the judge between the two sisters.
In "Everyday Use," Dee and Maggie are two sisters who are in conflict with one another. Maggie is slightly envious of her older sister Dee, but she also respects her. Maggie "thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word .
the world never learned to say to her" (p 840). Maggie is very passive and is the weaker of the two sisters. She is insecure because she is not as smart, nor as good looking as Dee. .
She keeps her "chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle" (p. 841). Dee is the self-centered antagonist in this story and is used to getting whatever she wants. .
Likewise, "Why I live at the P.O.," is about two sisters who are in conflict with one another. Sister and Stella-Rondo are the sisters in conflict. Sister is only twelve months .
older than Stella-Rondo, so there is some competition between them. Sister is the narrator of the story, and she tries to get the reader to side with her even though she is the instigator and the antagonist in this situation. She says "I was getting along fine with Mama, Papa-Daddy, and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again" (p. 855). Sister also claims that Stella-Rondo has "always had anything in the world she wanted and then she"d throw it away" (p.856).
In "Everyday Use," the conflict begins when Dee returns home from college wanting some handmade quilts that were given to Maggie.