摘 要

《外婆家的日用家当》是黑人女作家艾丽丝·沃克早期的短篇小说。故事讲述了因为对手工被子的不同观点而引发的家庭矛盾；一方面，代表传统黑人妇女的母亲和小女儿麦琪将被子作为日常家用；而另一方面，受过良好教育的大女儿迪伊认为传统的手工被子应该作为一种装饰物用来欣赏。小说的创作背景正是黑人运动的高潮时期，不难看出作者作为黑人女性作家，对解放黑人运动的关心。 本文旨在分析在当时的背景下，黑人美国梦的双重性。处于那个时代的美国黑人既想融入美国的白人社会，又想保持者本民族的文化传统，处于一种两难的境地。本文分为五个部分：第一部分介绍小说创作背景及作者生平；第二部分从两个层面、三个维度分析了小说中的三位女主人公；第三部分分析了文章的主题，在特定的社会环境下黑人美国梦的双重性，他们既想全然融入白人社会又要坚持本民族的文化传统；第四部分总结全文，并对如何传承文化提出了启示。

关键词：文化传承；冲突；民族意识；双重性

Abstract

Everyday Use is a short story of Alice Walker, a black woman writer. The story tells us the conflict in the family, due to the different attitudes towards the quilt. On the one hand, Mama and younger daughter Maggie represents the traditional generation, they keep the quilt as everyday use; on the other hand, the well-educated elder daughter Dee thinks that the quilt should be used as the decoration. The story is written in the high time of the black man's movements, we can easily find that Alice Walker shows her great concern to these black people. This paper intends to analysis within the specific background, the dualism of the African American's American dream. At that period, those black people want to be in the white man's society, and to keep their tradition, they are in the condition of dilemma.This paper consists of four parts. In the first part, it introduces the background and information of the author. In the second part, it analyzes the three women from two levels and three aspects, In the third part, it analyzes the theme of the story. With the specific society, the dualism of African American’s Dream; They want to be in the white man’s world, while not abandon their traditional roots. In the fourth part, it draws the conclusion and puts forward suggestion for culture heritage.

Key Words: the heritage of culture; conflict; nation awareness; dualism

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the Story 1

1.2 Introduction of Author 1

1.3 Pun Analysis of Title 2

2 Analysis from Two levels 4

2.1 On the Psychological and Emotional Level 4

2.1.1 Analysis of Mother's Attitude........................................................................4

2.1.2 Analysis of Social Background 5

2.2 On the Physical and Concrete Level 6

2.2.1 Aspects of Education 6

2.2.2 Differences of Personality 6

2.2.3 Difference of Social Status 8

3 Dualism of African American's Dream 10

3.1 Dualism of American Dream 10

3.2 Consciousness of Culture Heritage .................................................................. 11

3.3 National Identity and Reconstruction .12

4 Conclusion .13

4.1 Summary .13

4.2 Suggestions.......................................................................................................13

References....................................................................................................................14

Acknowledgments........................................................................................................15

Evaluation of Everyday Use－Dualism of African American’s American Dream

1 Introduction

1.1 Background of the Story

Everyday Use is one of Alice Walker's early works, the story presents readers the dilemma between family members, which begins with a quilt. When Alice Walker wrote the story, it's the high time of African-American Civil Rights Movement in the sixties and seventies of the twenty centuries. In 1963, Martin Luther King delivered the speech I Have a Dream, from that time, the black race has gradually started awakening to purse ethnic identity and defend their ethnic heritage. In this novel, Alice Walker inherited the tradition of black literature, to tell the story based on a specific conflict, to keep the quilt as everyday use or decoration, which becomes the role of story.

1.2 Introduction of Author

Alice Walker was born in a sharecropper family in 1944 in southern Georgia and she was the youngest child within eight children. The ancestors of her parents were Indians slaves. In 1961 Alice won a scholarship to study in the Atlanta Spa Pullman University, and it is the high time of the Civil Rights Movement, she engaged in this political movement for racial equality. In 1962, Alice Walker was invited to Martin Luther King's house. In 1963 Alice went to Washington and attended the famous parade, along with thousands of black people attended Martin Luther King's speech I Have a Dream. When graduated in 1965, Alice returned to home in the South, which is the center of the movement, to continue to participate in the Civil Rights Movement for the black man. In 1972 Alice went to Wellesley College as a professor, teaching a course woman's literature, which is the first American college offers this kind of courses study in women. In the process of the teaching, Alice introduced a large number of black women writers to the students. She explored and organized a lot material of the literary forerunner Zola Neal Heston (1891-1960). Heston is a black female writer of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s, her best work is They look up to Heaven (1937), due to the work embodied the tradition black people's optimistic attitude towards life, her work was not popular in the Protest Literature era.

1.3 Pun Analysis of Title

Everyday use, from the literal aspect, everyday use refers to the grandma's quilt. An ordinary, handmade by the grandmother, a quilt which is handed generation by generation; it refers to the changing environment, which means the traditional African crafts are facing threat of surviving; from a deep analysis point of view, refers to the traditional African culture. By using this title, Alice Walker pun points that, people's attitudes toward everyday use are different because of the personal differences.

2 Analysis from Two levels