Maggie And Dee's Relationship example essay topic

In this Paper I will compare and contrast the some of the relationships in 'Everyday Use' by Alice Walker, to Drown by Junot Diaz. Dee and maggie are sister in 'Everyday Use'. Dee is outgoing and ambitious, Maggie is shy and lazy. Maggie envies Dee, but also fears her.

They act more like co-workers than siblings. In the story they don't appear to interact with each other often, which makes it difficult to develop a relationship. From the story it doesn't illustrate them ever having a close connection probably due to Maggie's shyness and envy. Alice Walker writes 'Maggie will be be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that 'no' is a word never learned to say to her. ' Dee (Wangero) is the most dominant one out of the two, which is no surprise since she tries take the quilts from Dee (Wangero).

I found it I found it odd that she wanted those quilts because of her heritage, when she completely disgraced her heritage when she traded her own name in for Wangero. Alice writes:' You know as well as me you was named after you aunt Dicie. ' I said. Dicie is my sister, She name Dee.

We called her 'Big Dee' after Dee was born. ' But who was she named after?' asked Wangero. ' I guess after Grandma Dee,' I said. ' And who was she name after?' asked Wangero. ' Her mother,' I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. 'That's about as far back as I can trace it,' I said.

Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the civil war through the branches. Her name had been passed down from generation to generation before Dee received it. Obviously the name had great importance in her family. Her mother could trace the name back to the civil war and connect it with specific people in her family. Alice Walker write's 'you just don't understand,' she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car. 'what don't I understand?' I wanted to know. 'Your heritage,' she said'.

She criticize her mother about not understanding their heritage though, she places her heritage on those quilts instead of continuing the family name that was handed down to her. In Drown by Junot Diaz, Junior and Rafa relationship had many similarities and differences to the relationship between Maggie and Dee (Wangero). In "Ys real" there relationship was affected my there location. "In the Capital Rafa and I fought so much that our neighbors took to smashing broomsticks over us to break it up, but in the campo it wasn't like that.

In the campo we were friends". Rafa was the older one so naturally he's the more dominant one. What set junior apart from Dee is that he stands up to his older sibling, which shows that Rafa doesn't take advantage of him. They appear to do many things together when they were in "El Campo".

Diaz writes "We caught j aivas in the streams and spent hours walking across the valley to see girls who were never there; we set traps for we never caught and toughened up our roosters with pails of cold water. We worked hard at keeping busy". Rafa and juniors relationship was closer than Maggie and Dee's relationship, but at the same time Rafa only interacted with Junior when it was convenient. Junot writes "Back in the capital he rarely said anything to me except shut up, . Unless of course, he was mad and then he had about five hundred routines he liked to lay on me".

In conclusion I discussed similarities and differences between relationships in 'Everyday Use' by Alice Walker, to Drown by Junot Diaz.