Mama Johnson
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"Everyday Use", written by Alice Walker is a short story that begins with women waiting: Mama Johnson and her daughter Maggie, waiting at home, in the deep rural South, a place they had never left, for a visit from Dee. Dee is the daughter who had not waited, the daughter who could not wait to leave home. Since Dee could not wait to leave home Mama Johnson and her daughter Maggie viewed her as flourishing, prosperous, and outgoing. But Mama and Maggie are not just waiting for Dee. They are waiting for redemption. The redemption they are waiting on is coming from a daughter who has chic, sovereignty, wit, fortitude, and attitude. Something the mother and daughter lack, possibly because they have low self- esteem and no self- worth. Their waiting is shows that the mother and daughter lives are bleak and drab.
Mama tells us that she has dreamed of a certain kind of redemption. In her dream, Dee, the daughter who has chic, sovereignty, wit, fortitude, and the courage to "get out," has made it big in the world out there; she is on some kind of Johnny Carson talk show, and Mama, having arrived backstage in a "soft-seated limousine," is ushered in, met by the Johnny Carson-type host, told "what a fine girl" she has, and brought on stage to be joined with her daughter Dee, who "is embracing me with tears in her eyes"...