In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" the reader is introduced to three main characters, a mother and her two daughters. The first daughter, Maggie, still lives at home with her mother and is her companion. Dee, however, moves on with life and goes out to make something of herself in the world. The story is an account of one of Dee's visits, but the narrator, the mother, makes a very obvious comparison between Dee and Maggie's looks, intelligence, behaviorism, and values. The reader has a lesson to learn since the story is told through the mother's eyes. It is amazing that two siblings can grow up in the same environment and turned out so differently. Dee and Maggie are like day and night, each with her own strengths and weaknesses.

The narrator draws a pretty good picture into the reader's mind of what her daughters look like. Right off...