The Analysis of the Black American Woman "Dee" in Everyday Use
Huang Qiuyue
(South China University of Techology, School of Foreign Language)

1. Introduction
Alice Walker is one of the notable black American writers in American literature and black literature in 1950s-1960s. Everyday Use is regarded as one of Alice Walker's best-written short stories, which is told in first person by the the mother, an African American woman living in the Deep South with her younger daughter Maggie. The story humorously depicts the differences between the mother and her shy younger daughter Maggie, who still lives traditionally in the rural South, and her educated, confident daughter Dee, who fights for her independence as a black American women and searches for her black identity in the dominating white society. The story centers around one day when the older daughter, Dee, goes back home from college after time away and a conflict between the mother and daughters over some heirloom family possessions. Their struggle reflects the characters' contrasting ideas about their heritage and identity. 
The prevailing opinion among the critics about this story is that Dee is the traitor of black American's cultural heritage, and the mother and Maggie is the hope of the true value of the African Americans' tradition and heritage. However, with the analysis based on the post-colonialism theory, we may safely come to the conclusion that Dee actually took the first step toward the awakening of self-consciousness of the African Americans women, though her personal frustration of racism and hedges of her development is clearly reflected.
2. The Analysis of Dee
In Everyday Use, Dee is a very complicated character who exposes herself confidently in the mainstream society as a black American woman. With the help of the post-colonialism theory, the character of Dee will be specifically analyzed over her progress and frustration.
2.1. Ontological crisis
Not only the appearance is an obstacle for the black, but also the ontological thinking.
"Ontology--once it is finally admitted as leaving existence by the wayside--does not permit us to understand the being of the black man. For not only must the black man be black; he must be black in relation to the white man. ... Overnight the Negro has been given tow frames of reference within which he has had to place himself. His metaphysics, or, less pretentiously, his customs and the sources on which they were based, were wiped out because they were in conflict with a civilization that he did not know and that imposed itself on him. " (Gang, 2001: 293)
In confrontation with the white culture, which is the civilization that they are not familiar with and that imposed itself on them, the black American are born to believe that they are inferior to the white Americans in nearly all aspects, which is more enhanced mainly by the education and media of the white. In the story, Dee receives the education of the white and is imbued with the dominating white culture and values, such as the aesthetic taste of dress and attitude toward marriage, etc. And the mother is also affected by the media, such as TV, over the dominating values of the white. Different from her mother and her younger sister, Dee lives among the white people and exposes herself to the racism, which enables her to clash with the white culture and experience the painful struggle to seek her own identity.
"When the Negro makes contact with the white world, a certain sensitizing action takes place. If his psychic structure is weak, one observes a collapse of the ego. The black man stops behaving as an actional person. The goal of his behavior will be The Other (in the guise of the white man), for The Other alone can give him worth. That is on the ethical level: self-esteem. But there is something else." (Gang, 2001: 296)
In Everyday Use，Dee at first is The Other by accepting the education of the white culture. In the very beginning, she seems to dislike her own identity and culture, for example, she feels hatred toward her old house and said she would never bring her friends home. But gradually awareness of her own identity and culture is aroused. She finally brings her boyfriend or perhaps husband home, and has great interests in taking photoes of their house and everyday life, and appreciating their traditional possessions. Although it may be critical in her way to protect the heritage, but the awareness of the importance of the black identity and culture is already aroused in her mind. After she fails to obtain the priceless quilts which her mother decides to give her younger sister Maggie, she says to Maggie:
"You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it."
Dee definitely awares how important it is to realize their own identity and protect their own heritage, especially in the new era when the Black Power Movement arouses the independence and equality of the black culture from the white culture. She has no doubt on her sister's ability to inherit the tradition of the family, but she has apprehension over the protection and development of the whole black American culture, which the isolated life of her mother and younger sister properly can't make much contribution to. Apparently, Dee is selfish and superficial to some extent, but actually she is striving to seek her own identity and protect their culture and heritage as a whole. 
2.2. The double-consciousness
When confronted with the two cultures, the pioneer black like Dee is struggling to find out how to deal with them. Under these two cultures, Dee's psyche falls into double-consciousness which is proposed by the famous black writer Du Bois.
In the opening chapter of his book The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois describes double consciousness as follows:"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He wouldn't bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face.” (Du Bois, 1997)
Dee always feel the dual existence of her identity, one is American and the other is black people, which differ from each other in their ideology and values. The conflict between Dee and her mother and younger sister actually reflects the conflict between these two consciousness. No doubt that the mother and Maggie is loyal to their tradition and heritage, but they refuses to any contact with the white and changes, it can't eternally protect their heritage. The development of the black culture needs the loyalty of the mother and Maggie, but also requires the innovation and independence of Dee. When the black culture is in contact with the white culture, it shall actively interact with the other, but at the same time shall keep itself.
2.3. The Womanism
Black women is a special minority group in the dominating white society. Being "doubly marginalized" (Ward & Herndl, 1997: 741) as both black and female, these women is not only struggling to find their identity in the dominating white world, but also striving to resist the oppression from the man of the same race.
As a black woman herself, Alice Walker shows great sympathy and concerns to this special minority group, and promote the theory of  "womanism" in her prose collection, In Search of Our Mot In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose. It emphasizes the female selfhood of the black women and distinguish it from the mainstream feminism established by the white. It gives much more voice to the black women who are under the oppression of the white people and the black men for a long time.
"'You acting womanish,' i.e., like a woman. Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in great depth than is considered 'good' for one." (Walker, 1984: xi-xii)
In Everyday Use, Dee is the most typical one among the three to meet the requirements of Womanism, though she is egocentric and unprincipled in one way or another. Different from her mother and Maggie, Dee is what Womanism says "outrageous, audacious, courageous and willful", and would never feel inferior and timid to the white.
A lot of examples can be found in the story which verifies the Womanist greatness of Dee. For instance, the mother can't look a strange white man in the eye, and Maggie always walks in the way that "eyes on ground, feet in shuffle", while Dee "would always look anyone in the eye", and "Hesitation was no part of her nature". When come to the relationship between man and woman, Dee audaciously pursued her love--courting Jimmy T, and when she failed, she didn't indulged herself in sadness, but "hardly had time to recompose herself". Such a thing is totally different from the tradition that the mother and Maggie uphold. Moreover, Dee bravely fights against those petty regulations with which she is hedged about. This is straightforwardly expressed when Dee determines to change her name "Dee" which is passed down from those women of older generations who led a traditional life as the mother and Maggie. As to it, Dee says "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me."
It is not the tradition that Dee fights against, but the hedges set round the black women by the other sex that she tries to overthrow.
Works Cited

Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Blight (eds.) David W. and Robert Gooding-Williams. Boston and New York :Bedford/St . Martin's, 1997 :5.

Gang Zhu. Twentieth Century Western Critical Theories. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001. 292-296. 
 
Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. Womanist Prose by Alice Walker. San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984.

Ward, Robyn R. & Herndl, Diane Price. “Ethnicity.” In Feminisms. An Anthology of literary theory and criticism. Ed. Robyn R. Ward and Diane Price Herndl. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1997. 741-745.