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Ciara Kennedy ENGL 483 6 October 2011 Mama and James Henry Hammond: Ignorance is Bliss Alice Walkers Everyday Use is a very controversial short narrative centered on an aspirational young black woman, Dee, and her practical, family-oriented mother. This story is very important to southern culture, and most specifically, the African American community that dealt with racism during this time. While James Henry Hammonds pro-slavery non-fiction piece, Letter to an English Abolitionist, was published in 1845 over 100 years before Everyday Use (which was published in 1973) the two pieces have similar ideas in common. Surprisingly, there are many commonalities between Mamas character and James Henry Hammond. Mama resents Dee for creating a new identity for herself. Likewise, Hammond has contempt for abolitionists who wish to integrate slaves into society. Mama and Maggie actually prefer to live simply, as Hammond prefers to keep order by keeping his slaves peacefully on his plantation. While Dees character is largely shaped from Mamas biased view of her, it is clear that Dee sets education as a priority in her life, and as a true measurement of success. Hammond also holds a biased viewpoint on abolitionists trying to educate slaves for the wrong reasons. To fully understand the family dynamic in Everyday Use, one must take into account the effect residual racism had on African Americans in the post-Civil War south. Many freed slaves abandoned their rural roots in the south to take up new identities in northern, urban areas. In Walter Allens article, African American Family Life in Societal Context: Crisis and Hope, Allen reflects on the drastic changes freed slaves had to make in order to survive in a totally new role. Allen writes:

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On the heels of this evolution of Blacks from slavery to cast status came the geographic, socioeconomic, and cultural transitions of Black America from a Southern, rural, agrarian folk society to a Northern, Western, and Midwestern, industrial society. In four generations, or roughly 300 years, African Americans had moved from agrarian slavery into the industrial and urban heartlands of this country. They had become hybrids, combining the heritages of their African and American experiences. (573) It is clear that this transition would not be an easy one for freed slaves. Dee especially faces great difficulty making the decision to transition from her impoverished roots to a more prominent social class. The most encouraging message in the story coming from Dee is when she tells her mother, You just dont understand Your heritage You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. Its really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live youd never know it (1024). It is clear that not only does Dee realize the opportunities for blacks in the south are growing; she has proven herself highly capable of accomplishing these tasks. It is for this reason that Dee has taken on the role of abolitionist, being free herself, she wishes to bring freedom to her family as well. This quote from Dee is very contradictory to how mama has described her. In mamas eyes, the character of Dee largely resembles confusion and chaos. Dee has been able to find her place in society and become a success. She has taken advantage of new opportunities and has broken away from her impoverished background. Maggie thinks, [Dee] has held life always in the palm of one hand, that no is a word the world never learned to say to her (1018). Unlike Dee, mama and Maggie have not been as successful in the same environment because they arguably have an inferiority complex. Mama may resent Dee because she is so confident, or Dee

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may be so confident because mama envies her ability to get what she wants. Mama even writes, Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure she also compares Maggie to a lame animal (1019). It is interesting that mama makes this connection between Maggie and Dee. She says, Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way Maggie walks (1019). Yet, somehow, mama finds herself more attached to Maggie. Mama, after all, places the future of her family in Maggies hands. Mama prefers to hold on to her humble beginning. This humble beginning, though, Dee has come to resent because the reason it is so humble is because of the white oppression of racism, and before that, slavery. Understandably, it would be a very huge leap to compare mama, to an avid slavery advocate, James Henry Hammond. While mama and Hammond of course do not agree on specific issues, they do possess similar traits. They realize that not everything is meant to be equal, and their life experiences have shown them that. According to mama, [Dees] feet were always neat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a certain style (1020). It is with this God-given style that Dee is able to accomplish what her mother never could. Hammond also discusses that there are positives and negatives in every individual, and not everyone is born equal, and not everyone should be treated equally. Hammond writes in his Letter to an English Abolitionist, I repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that all men are born equal. No society has ever yet existed, and I have already incidentally quoted the highest authority to show that none will ever exist, without a natural variety of classes (90). Considering the similarities present here, mama has come to accept Hammonds belief that society can be broken down in social classes,

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and that Dee has risen to a new class, one that not even she is a part of. Perhaps the reason mama resents Dee is that, after all, she reaffirms this notion that some individuals are better than others. Mama dwells on this opinion that Dee does consider herself superior to others. After all, mama does compare Maggie to a lame animal, and Dee to a rich careless car owner. Hammond, in many ways can be seen as the rich careless car owner, the slaves as the lame animals, and the abolitionists as someone ignorant to be kind to [them] (1019). Hammond, throughout his Letter to an English Abolitionist surprisingly pays little attention to the slaves themselves, other than to call them uneducated. Hammond spends most of his letter addressing the faults of the abolitionist movement, just as mama discusses the flaws in Dees lifestyle. The justification Hammond uses behind this is that slaves and other hard-working classes do not have the leisure of time to learn, and in this case, should not be given power or authority because they are not equipped to handle these roles. The main difference between these points of views is the time in which they were written. By the time Dee is born, slavery has already been abolished and the social structure has been altered. Dee takes advantage of this and is able receive a higher education. She finds success away from her town, and attempts to bring back this new enlightenment to her family. Of course, this central disconnect between Dee and her family is the purpose of the story. This microcosm of the household can also be applied to Hammonds letter. As Dee does return, she is not just resented by her mother, but questioned as well. Mama writes, She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didnt necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand (1019). It is with this same doubt that Hammond

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considers the abolitionists. Hammond writes, I have no apprehension that our slaves would seize such an opportunity to revolt. The present generation of them, born among us, would never think of such a thing in any time, unless instigated by others (92). Despite the fact that Everyday Use was written many generations after this generation of slaves, this disruption of peace still exists in the story. Dee burns [mama] with knowledge [she] didnt necessarily need to know (1019). In this case, Dee is the instigator, as she is trying to break, not the chains of slavery, but the remnants of prejudice that have held back mama and Maggie from attaining what she believes is their true potential. Dee does not realize that mama has made peace with her life, and does not need a certain style. She has accepted her rough, man-working hands (1018). Mama has been confronted with the choice to disregard this life for a new one, as Dee has, but she has chosen not to. Hammonds ideas do sync up with mamas beliefs. Hammond writes, our slaves could not be easily seduced, nor would any thing delight them more than to assist in stripping Cuffee (92). While Hammonds Letter to an English Abolitionist and Walkers Everyday Use were written over a century apart, they have a common theme. In fact, the familial conflict in Everyday Use correlates to Hammonds discussion of the relationship between slave, slaveholder, and abolitionist. Mamas perspective is surprisingly similar to that of Hammonds. She agrees that social order must be in place to prevent chaos and confusion. She has accepted that her daughter has made it in the real world and that she has remained forgotten by this exact same society that has accepted her daughter with open arms. The premise of this acceptance comes from Hammonds letter as well, that all men simply were not created equal. Hammond argues that believing that all men were created equal can only result in letdown. In the closing lines of Everyday Use mama decides to diverge from society and empower Maggie

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with the future of her family. These final moments also diverge from Hammonds thinking, because mama has given Maggie a power that not even Dee can receive. Alice Walker accomplishes a goal very different than James Henry Hammond. Walker shows that people are capable of accomplishing success no matter what race they happen to be. She also shows recognizes the good of mama and Maggie in their social class. As Farah Griffin writes in her article The Courage of her Convictions, the greatest gift Walker gives is. The understanding that people are people, capable of all the good and bad that defines us as humans and that as such we have the duty to recognize them for their complexity, fight against the oppression they enact and celebrate their affirmations of life in all its forms (24). Indeed, Walker has confronted reality with a progressive, generous, and understanding eye that James Henry Hammond could never match or truly understand.

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Works Cited Allen, Walter R. "African American Family Life in Societal Context: Crisis and Hope."Sociological Forum 10.4 (1995): 569-92. Print. Coker, Angela D. "African American Female Adult Learners: Motivations, Challenges, and Coping Strategies." Journal of Black Studies 33 (2003): 654-74. Print. Farrell S. Fight vs. Flight: A Re-evaluation of Dee in Alice Walkers Everyday Use. Studies in Short Fiction [serial online]. Spring 1998 1998;35(2):179. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Sept 2011. Griffin, Farah J. "The Courage of Her Convictions." The Women's Review of Books 15.4 (1998): 23-24. Print. "James Henry Hammond's Defense of Slavery." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education(1997): 55. Print. McCarthy, T. "Coming to Terms with Our Past, Part II: On the Morality and Politics of Reparations for Slavery." Political Theory 32.6 (2004): 750-72. Print. Smith, Felipe. "Alice Walker's Redemptive Art." African American Review 26.3 (1992): 437-51. Print. Tuten, Nancy. Alice Walkers Everyday Use. Explicator. 51.2 (1993): 125. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 30 Sept 2011. Walker, Alice. Everyday Use. William L. Andrews, ed. The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology. New York: Norton, 1998. Whitsitt, Sam. In Spite of It All: Reading of Alice Walkers Everyday Use. African American Review. 34.3 (2000): 443. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 30 Sept 2011.