Everyday Use

Throughout the entirety of Alice Walker's short story Everyday Use, I was further and further disgusted by Dee.  Walker starts off the bat implying that Dee is a spoiled, selfish girl in saying that "'no' is a word the world never learned to say to her" (Walker).  Dee is a self-centered young woman, with no respect for her mother and what she's done for her children.  I was so confused by Dee's actions when she returned to visit her mother and sister.  She was suddenly so interested in her old house's humble, homemade things from which she had so eagerly run away.  All she can think about is herself, and the moment SHE deems something worthy of her desire, it belongs to her.  I found it annoying that she wanted take back with her things such as the churn and the dasher.  These were items that her mother and sister NEEDED and USED.  She knew this, yet still openly stated that she merely wanted them for her own decor.  I thought the whole short story ended in irony.  Dee, who all her life had gotten whatever she desired, but never wanted what she had, was denied the meticulously made quilts she had once scorned.  On the opposite end, Maggie, who had accepted the role of living in her sister's shadow and having nothing "reserved for her", was given the precious family quilts for her own.