How would I write a thesis for Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"?

To write a
thesis for the story "Everday Use," you want to think about the main ideas and
concepts explored in the story. So let's discuss some of the themes and concepts that the story
reveals.

In "," we are told the story of two sisters told from the
perspective of their mother. Maggie lives with her mother at their family home while Dee is
visiting from the city. While Maggie, who is not bright and is blighted by burns, lives with her
mother and spends time with the family, Dee despised the traditional life and went off to become
educated.

In the story, when Dee visits, she acts more like a tourist than a
part of the family. She is unrecognizable to her family, wearing "traditional" African
clothing and changing her name to overcome the name given to her by her oppressors. Her
boyfriend is Muslim and refuses to eat the pork that the narrator has prepared. Dee walks around
the family house taking pictures, commenting on the quaintness of the land and collecting
objects that she sees as heirlooms. Dee has no intention of using any of the things she
takesinstead seeing them as artifacts of the traditional life of African Americans.

Maggie, on the other hand, is unpretentious. She will marry a local man, and live a
simple life in connection with her family and community. She appreciates the things they own,
like the family quilts, because she had relationships with the people who made them. Dee
considers her to be uncultured and incapable of truly appreciating the value of the family
heirlooms.

The central conflict in the story comes about when Dee claims that
Maggie will not appropriately appreciate the family quilts. Saying that she will put them to
"everyday use" and eventually destroy them. This conflict will provide the best thesis
about the story. Focus on the idea of tradition and how the different characters view it. Dee
considers tradition to be something dead that you appreciate from afar like in a museum. She
doesn't see thein the fact that her mother and sister are living the tradition of their
family.

Maggie intends to put the quilts to everyday use because she is not
divorced from her heritage or traditioninstead she appreciates it by living what has been handed
down. A good thesis would focus on the irony presented in the story and write an essay about who
appreciates tradition and heritage more.