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The idea of eye contact, vision, or gaze recurs throughout “Everyday Use,” representing the various ways that characters, particularly Dee, interact with or create hierarchies of power. For example, when Mama contrasts her inability to look white men in the eye with Dee’s tenacious ability to always return a gaze, eye contact represents Dee’s ability to combat and resist oppressive racial norms. Dee uses her gaze also to elevate herself above her family, creating a power dynamic between them. When Dee and Hakim-a-Barber visit, they signal to each other with their eye movements over the family’s heads, a conversation that excludes, and therefore disempowers, Dee’s mother and sister. While sight represents Dee’s resistance to some hierarchies of power, like in her ferocious returning gaze to white men, it also reinforces other ones, like between Dee and her poorer, less educated family.
Eye contact / Vision / Gaze Quotes in Everyday Use
The Everyday Use quotes below all refer to the symbol of Eye contact / Vision / Gaze. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Everyday Use Quotes
Who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. She would always look anyone in the eye.
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Mama, having just imagined a happy, televised reconciliation between herself and Dee, here dismisses her own hopeful vision. Mama’s internalized racism and lack of self-confidence prevent her from making up with her daughter, or becoming someone she thinks her daughter might like or admire. When Mama asks, “who ever knew a Johnson with a quick tongue?” she implies that something about her nature (rather than, say, her lack of education) prevents her from being witty. Likewise, Mama’s fear of white people can be seen in how she talks to white people always with “one foot raised in flight.” Walker uses Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ip
How long ago was it the house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie’s arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. And Dee…Why don’t you dance around the ashes? I’d wanted to ask her. She had hated that house so much.
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Mama, who is reminiscing before Dee arrives for her visit, describes the terrible house fire that burnt down their ancestral home several years ago. The memory of the fire, which Mama brings up several times throughout the story, clearly still terrorizes the family. Mama still “hears” the flames, experiencing a kind of synesthesia (a phenomenon where one’s senses become muddled).Notably, many of the material things from which Dee derives her sense of self (hair, clothing) were lost to Maggie in that fire, perhaps accounting for Maggie’s apathy toward these modes of self-expression. Maggie’s eyes reflect the flames as she burns, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque
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Eye contact / Vision / Gaze Symbol Timeline in Everyday Use
The timeline below shows where the symbol Eye contact / Vision / Gaze appears in Everyday Use. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Everyday Use
...proud of her as she is. Anyway, thinks Mama, she would be unable to make eye contact with a white, male host. Dee, on the other hand, could make eye contact with...
(full context)
...Dee and Hakim-a-Barber give each other looks over her mother and sister’s heads, communicating through eye contact . Ultimately, Mama agrees to call Dee “Wangero,” settling the issue.
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...of herself, since it’s “a new day for us.” She puts on sunglasses, obscuring her eyes. Maggie smiles at Dee, or perhaps at her sunglasses. Mama notes that it is a...
(full context)
