Psychoanalytic Theories for "Everyday Use"

The approach I took in analyzing Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” was a simple one. While reading, I identified all the main characters. The next step was to read the entire story and try to focus on any “dysfunctional” or abnormal behavior, because then it’s possible to implement the psychological concepts from Tyson’s “Using concepts from Psycohoanalytic Theory”.  

The main characters in the passage are Maggie, Dee and Mama. Maggie and Dee are sisters with Dee being the oldest and Mama is who the story is told by. As I noticed the abnormal or “dysfunctional” behavior with Maggie and Dee, I realized that they were polar opposites. 

Maggie has the core issue of “insecure sense of self” which is actively defended by the avoidance defense mentioned by Tyson. Mama, as the narrator, helped me comprehend Maggie’s behavior thoroughly.  Early In the passage Mama says “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners”, which to me is the first indication that avoidance is her tactic to cover her “insecure sense of self”. The next important observation that supports my theory is when Mama mentions how Maggie walks. Mama stated “That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle.” The description clearly describes someone who insecure with their self or surroundings.

As I studied Dee, or Wangero, I realized how great the difference is between the sisters. As mentioned earlier, Maggie has an “insecure sense of self” and goes about handling the issue through avoidance. Now, while Dee has a similar core issue as well, she handles it differently. Dee’s core issue is “unstable sense of self”, which means she behaves or changes the way she looks when involved with different individuals. I recognized this when Mama called Dee and she replied “not Dee, Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo.” The response from Dee correlates with being “unable to sustain a sense of knowing ourselves” (Tyson27). 

Now that her core issue was found, my next step was answering the question, how does she cope with it? I was quick to identify Dee’s defense as displacement which is simply taking out her negative feelings on someone else.  Dee would say very harsh, mean things to Mama and especially Maggie. One example was when Dee said “Maggie’s brain is like and elephants” or even when she wrote to Mama “no matter where we choose to live, she will manage to come see us. But never bring friends.” This last quote solidified my evaluation of Dee’s core issue and Defense. Next, was to see if the sisters suffered together in any way.   

The connection between the two sisters and their behavior is shared through the experience of their previous house’s fire. The fire is what created both Maggie and Dee’s behavior and how they interact with each other and Mama. The sisters both use repression to attempt to subdue the experience, but use different defenses to cope with their core issues. This connection to a single experience made my psychoanalytic theories accurate because it’s often all people react differently to tragedies or negative experiences whether their family or not.