“Everyday Use” – A Rant by Gary

Rejecting your roots or your present situation and then acknowledging them later on seems like a kind of trend. We always hear people telling their stories of ascent from poverty or misfortune and their attaining good fortune through their own merit. The “legend” of the self-made man is an extremely fashionable and revered past at this point in time. I don’t intend to demean the self-made man story or the value of hard work in order to achieve a goal. I believe it is something of which to be extremely proud. I believe the opportunity to better yourself through hard work and self-attained merit is the basic premise behind our country. However, I do intend to point out that it seems to be kind of trendy (at least throughout history… once upon a time, the aristocracy were proud of their not having to achieve their own wealth, and the self-made men were not considered to be truly aristocratic… then later, the self-made industrialists and capitalists became the figures held in the highest esteem) to first be embarrassed about your heritage and then become proud of it later.

I cannot really support my claim of the trendy nature of being self-made, but the thought has stuck in my head since our reading “Everyday Use.” Like we discussed in class, Dee only “accepts” her heritage when it becomes fashionable. And then, her poor roots become more of a bragging point to her than a real heritage.

Again, I can’t cite a specific reference; however, in countless movies and TV shows we see characters embarrassed about some aspect of their life (more often than not this aspect is materialistic or financial or superficial) until some supernatural being or hero or the tooth fairy or Morgan Freeman in God form makes them realize that they should be proud of themselves. This is of course the moral of the story. But in real life, not everyone has such a great emotional mentor or guardian angel. So, it becomes a trend. Once you achieve success (in whatever form that may be), your roots are no longer significant and only become a fact supporting the “hey you, I can do anything better than you can” attitude of which everyone has some (this includes every motivational speaker you have ever heard).

My attitude is indeed cynical, but it applies to Dee quite well. For example, when she was a girl she could not stand the sight of her run-down shack of a house. In fact, she enjoyed watching it burn. When she returns, grown up, she takes picture after picture of her family’s new but similar shack. Her destitute background has become a talking point. She is not even interested in her family, just her family’s living conditions and history (in the form of family heirlooms). Dee believes that her family cannot (and should not be able to) appreciate their heritage because they have not reached her considered measure of success. She thinks that they are too simple to understand their heritage. She believes that they don’t know what they have and where they came from just because they haven’t seen the top of the mountain. She is too proud of her success. She can no longer relate too her family because they consider their way of life as a way of life and she considers their way of life a talking point to highlight her own accomplishments.