In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker is a story about a mother and her two daughters in which one comes back home to visit the family. The history behind the author is she is a highly acclaimed novelist. She experienced her first collection of poetry, in which was published in 1968. The talents she had for story telling sparked her work even more. In The looks of the “ Everyday Use” it seem that the two girls are way different than one another. One of the girls, as it explains in the story “Dee, is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure”, it explains that she’s now become a woman (Walker Pg.346). As far as Maggie, “She had it hard not being so bright and that looks and money”, her mother clearly stated how she doesn’t feel comfortable not being cute enough and not smart enough (Walker Pg.347). So, throughout the story, you will understand what makes them different.
In “Everyday Use”, the mother explains dee and how she thinks she’s too good for what happened. Dee was lighter than Maggie, she had nicer hair and a fuller figure. She was a woman and her mom sometimes forgot that. When the house burned down about 12 years ago (Walker Pg.345). The mom explains how she can see Maggie’s arms sticking to her, her hair smoking and her dress falling off in little black papery flakes. As she glances over, she sees dee standing off under the sweetgum tree she used to dig gum out of, look of concentration on her face. She then asks dee “Why won’t you do a dance around the ashes?” that’s how much dee hated the house (Walker Pg.345). This explains how dee felt that she was way better than what they had. They raised money to send her Augusta school. She got to become full of knowledge and fill their heads with what she knew. She wanted the nice things. Dee was the kid who got it all and felt better than how she was raised.
Maggie will be nervous until her sister leaves She will stand in shame because of the scars down her arms in legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy. She’s having issues with the way she looks Maggie says, “In real life, I am large, big-boned woman with rough, man working hands”, she is shaming her herself for not being able to look flawless and know the nature of booty(Walker Pg.345). She explains that she’s good at man work, but not at female work. She has tendencies to kill and clean hogs as a man. The structure of her being big boned keep her from being cold in the zero weather as she explains the ways she looks and how horrible she feels.((Walker Pg.346). Maggie was left out in the story , it seemed that since she had been the one to discover the pain and heartache, she was looked at with shame. As the story go on , you start realize how much she doesn’t appreciate herself and how she’s afraid to even be around her sister . But the fact that she found someone who love her for her which was john. The mother is also excited about Maggie marrying John and her being able to sing hymns.
As Dee arrives, Maggie attempts to dash in the house. The glimpse of her feet was always neat as if God himself shaped them with a certain style. Dee and her boyfriend arrive and that’s when Maggie sucks in her breath and says “ Uhnnh” (Walker Pg.347). Dee’s mother that doesn’t approve of the boyfriend and his appearance and doesn’t like what Dee’s appearance looks like either. Dee than gets a camera and snaps a few pictures of Maggie and her mama. Dee’s boyfriend then tries to shake Maggie’s hand and she refuses (Walker Pg.348). The mothers then try to pronounce Dee’s new name, in fact, she can barely pronounce (Walker Pg.348). Dee then tells her mom she doesn’t have to call her that, but mother insisted that she will call her that. In this story, it has plenty of allegory with two parallel and one consistent level of meaning. Throughout the remainder of the story, Dee has this sense that she wants to be like her heritage and not just what her mama think. She rather take it upon herself to be what she wants and doesn’t care how anyone else feels about that. She states that “ She’s dead “, which shes saying that dee no longer exist and that was the name that oppressed her. She rather stick with her heritage(Walker Pg.348).
In conclusion to this story, Dee wants to get in touch with her African side of the family. But in doing so in the meantime, she ignores the fact that her mom has other ways of doing so. Dee wants to showcase the African heritage and show it off which is why she changed her name to Wangero. At the end of the story, Dee says “You ought to try to make something out of yourself, too, Maggie. It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and mama still live, you’d never know it (Walker Pg.352).” She is setting that even though they have a different lifestyle than her, they should make the best of what they have and even better. Dee’s style of living is symbolic of her culture. For Maggie and her mother, they are living in real experience.
“Everyday Use” Review
Furthermore, having an education assisted in evolving Dee’s character socially. For example, when Mama talks about Dee in the beginning, she mentions how she was sure Dee hated them. Mama states, “I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school” (Walker 7). Here Mama credits Dee getting an education with helping her to overcome her resentment for her family and changing her view of Maggie. Also, surprising her family, getting an education helped Dee make friends. When discussing if Dee had any friends, Mama states, “She had a few…Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in Iye” (Walker 8). From this, it is clear that school strengthened her people skills by giving her the ability to befriend girls who are usually too nervous to laugh. Not only does she befriend these girls, but she also manages to get them to become less nervous and erupt with laughter.
Despite these clear benefits of education, Alice Walker’s stand on education isn’t utterly positive. In fact, Walker suggests that education could be harmful or unhelpful in some cases. For instance, Mama had a hard time sending Dee to school, having to rely on the help of others and the church. Meanwhile, Mama never got her education after her school shut down for no apparent reason: “I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don’t ask me why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now” (Walker 7). Racism along with passive acceptance about everything, collectively contributed to Mama being stuck where she is now. Dee was fortunate to be able to go to school; however, her getting an education put a wall in-between her and the rest of her family. Not only did this separate Dee from her family but her continuous attempts to force her view on her family only weakened their bonds. Mama states, “She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice… burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know” (Walker 7). Dee’s education has equipped her with weapons she could use upon her family to make them feel inferior or insufficient under her. Dee’s thirst for knowledge and willingness to force it upon her family threatens to destroy Mama and Maggie’s simple world.
Along with dividing her from her family, Dee’s education causes her to lose her true sense of self identity. While Dee went to school and gained a new perspective and education, it caused her to lose the sense of heritage and identity which a family provides. When Dee returns home, she is desperately trying to reconnect to her heritage. Though, Dee’s education and exposure to the world causes her to gain a false sense of heritage. For example, when Dee changes her name to Wangero because of her newfound heritage: ‘Not ‘Dee,’ Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo…She’s dead…I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me” (Walker 9). Here shows how Dee’s knowledge of the world causes her to dissociate herself from both her family and southern roots, rejecting her American heritage in favor for her ancestral homeland of Africa. As an effect, she also rejects the line of strong women in her family who passed down valuable skills, traits, and traditions from generation to generation. In “Everyday Use,” Mama tells Dee that she was named after her aunt Dicie, who was named after Dee’s grandmother and great grandmother, and the name “Dee” goes back since before the Civil War (Walker 9-10). When Dee changed her name, she cuts herself off from her heritage and ends a tradition that goes back for more than three generations. Thus, removing Dee from her heritage, forcing her to look at her heritage as if she was looking at a piece of art.
In conclusion, “Everyday Use” reveals that education is a powerful thing. With an education, you could have more money and opportunities in life. Education granted Dee the ability to afford nice things and a choice to leave her home, unlike her family. However, there were also several downsides to Dee’s education. For example, Dee’s education plays a fundamental role in separating her from her heritage and family. In short, when only one person out of a community becomes educated, it may cause more harm than benefits.
Argument: For Fracking Should Be Banned
Fracking has brought up several environmental concerns including negative effects on geographic and climate change, fracking accidents that have polluted freshwater sources, and lastly the risk of public health.
The first argument for whether fracking should be banned is that it negatively affects the environment, climate and geological change. Fracking sites or pads interfere with forests, and land used for agriculture. These sites are paved with loads of gravel, and occupied by huge equipment. Deforestation caused by fracking has major effects on the environment, such as the loss of habitats for animal and plant species and is found to be a critical factor urging climate change (Meng, Q. 2017). Soil in the forest is usually moist, but can quickly dry out and become barren deserts after trees are clear-cut. Disruptions like this can lead to changes of local extreme temperatures, which cause harm to all living things. Mitchell Small a professor of civil and environmental engineering particularly expressed numerous problems that go hand in hand with fracking such as operational risks, degradation of water and air quality, global climate change, ecological impacts, human health impacts, and social impacts (Trimboli, B. 2016, Mar 01).
In addition, the fracking process can and already has created leakages, which contribute to global climate change. Natural gas is mostly made up of methane and methane is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas and is a highly more potent greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide which is released when hydrocarbons such as natural gas in this case is burned. “Methane is twenty five times more potent over a century and eighty to a hundred times more potent over twenty years (Romm, J. 2013, August 7). Methane leaks should have to remain as low as two percent. However, studies have concluded that those leaks now are as high as six to twelve percent. Geophysical Research Letters conducted a study in 2013 which estimated that in the Uinta Basin of eastern Utah, “55,000 kilograms of methane had leaked into the atmosphere every hour. This would be the equivalent of 6.2% to 11.7% of total natural gas production in the region (Kille, L.W. 2014, October 26).” These huge amounts of methane emissions into atmosphere caused by fracking unquestionably changes the effect of current greenhouse gases along with land surface temperatures and climates (Meng, Q. 2017). Scientist state that if we wish to avoid dangerous levels of global warming, the majority of fossil fuel reserves need to be kept underground.
Drilling huge holes in the soil and then injecting massive amounts of chemicals and water is not an ideal situation regarding earthquakes either. The US Geological Survey associated fifty earthquakes to fracking in Oklahoma with magnitudes that ranged on a scale of 1.0 to 4.0 (Vijayaraghavan, A. 2012, April 5).
“Between 1967 and 2000, geologists observed a steady background rate of 21 earthquakes of 3.0 Mw or greater in the central United States per year. Starting in 2001, when shale gas and other unconventional energy sources began to grow, the rate rose steadily to 100 such earthquakes annually, with 188 in 2011 alone (Kille, L.W. 2014, October 26).”
Geologists have been knowledgeable for years that injecting fluids and various chemicals underground can increase pressure on seismic faults and make them more likely to move resulting in an induced quake. A leak in U.S. oil and gas production which use immense amounts of water to open rocks and release natural gas or to bring up oil and gas from wells has been affiliated with an increase in moderate induced earthquakes in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ohio, Texas and Colorado. Seismologists at Columbia University have studied these quakes and found evidence that injection wells can eventually lead to more dangerous quakes. Pressure from water wells stress nearby faults and if seismic waves across Earth’s surface strike the fault it can rupture and ultimately produce an earthquake even stronger than a five magnitude (Begley, S. 2013, July 11).
Pennsylvania is one of several states with over seven thousand fracking wells. Companies like Sunoco are escalating their businesses across PA and people are losing if they haven’t already lost land to the company. However, Sunoco has had a higher rate of oil pipeline spills and accidents than the rest of its competitors forcing the state government to shut down the projects (Hauter, W. 2019). Ultimately the goal is to stop the process of fracking in the U.S. and in other countries before it even starts. Sunoco will not be the first or last company to have major oil spills or accidents which hurt the environment on a daily basis.
The second argument for whether fracking should be banned is that fracking accidents pollute not only the air but sources of freshwater. This particular case, United States v. Mix, No. 12-cr-00171 has brought up several major controversies regarding fracking (Criminal Law. 2014). BP Corporation a major England oil company was the operator at the Macondo well, located in the Gulf of Mexico. At the site of the well sat a drilling unit known as The Deepwater Horizon. The operation process requires drilling into layers of rock which contain fluids that are under pressure. These fluids can unintentionally flow into the holes that were drilled causing what is what is commonly referred to as a kick. The fluids can be flammable hydrocarbons, so it is one of the operator’s main jobs to carefully manage this process. Federal regulations dictate how an operator should and must manage a drilling operation such as this. Operators had started to come across some problems with the Macondo well. Several kicks happened which led to additional issues but BP continued to keep drilling. An expert who testified in the case said that BP’s decision to continue drilling despite the dangers was “one of the most dangerous things he had ever seen in his 20 years’ experience (Environmental Law. 2016).”
The additional drilling set off a chain of events that caused the devastating main disaster. Methane gas leaked into the Deepwater Horizon, and the gas exploded. One hundred and twenty-six crew members were on board, and eleven of them died during that explosion while seventeen others were injured. Shortly after the explosion, where the Deepwater Horizon had been located an oil leak lasted eighty-seven days, and about two hundred and ten million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill contaminated five hundred miles of the coastline of the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana (Criminal Law. 2014). The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling unit at BP’s Macondo Well not only killed eleven people but caused the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history.
Not only does this case deal with environmental law but involved criminal law as well. Jurisprudence identifies corporate liability for criminal acts, especially when based on the misconduct of key corporate officials. Two of BP’s top supervisors Robert Kaluza and Donald J. Vidrine were individually charged with negligent and grossly negligent conduct and even manslaughter. David Rainey an executive at Unified Command during the spill response, was charged with Obstruction of Congress, withheld documents, and made false statements to law enforcement officials. Additionally, former BP Oil Company engineer Kurt Mix was charged with Obstruction of Justice for messages regarding the flow rate of petroleum oil leaking from a damaged underwater well. Judge Carl Barbier determined that BP had been grossly negligent in its handling of the situation. BP had exceeded its budget, and the judge determined that BP’s decision to rush the drilling process and cut costs ultimately led to the disaster. BP initially disputed the finding of Gross Negligence and said it would appeal the ruling. Less than year later, however, the company reached a settlement agreement with the Justice Department and several states. “The settlement amount of $18.7 billion included $12.8 billion in fines under the Clean Water Act along with 4.9 billion to the states affected by the spill (Environmental Law. 2016).” The U.S. Department of Justice declared that BP Corporation agreed to plead guilty to felony manslaughter, obstruction of Congress, and environmental crimes in connection with the Deepwater Horizon incident. In addition, and as part of the plea deal, BP agreed to pay four billion dollars in criminal fines and penalties and the criminal recovery would go to preservation of the marine environments and ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico. Due to the criminal aspects of the case, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proclaimed its resolution of Securities fraud charges with BP in a $525 million settlement. Not only did this major incident have environmental consequences but it dealt with criminal acts as well. Water pollution due to fracking is one of the main controversies because unclean water can lead to major health risks.
The third argument for whether fracking should be banned is that it is a risk to public health. Investigations based off Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Texas which are among the top states for hydraulic fracturing have found sufficient evidence that the fracking process has caused considerable water pollution near oil and gas wells. This pollution has led to severe health problems facing the public which include and are not limited to cancer, respiratory problems, neurological issues, possible birth defects (Dechert, S. 2015). Fracking is a combination of water mixed with sand and chemicals deep underground to split apart shale deposits and extract gas and oil from the rock’s openings. The chemicals used for this process such as methane, when accidentally mixed with drinking water can and will lead to higher risks of birth defects, and lung disease. With that being said, people who live within a closer proximity to natural gas wells or fracking sites are significantly more likely to have upper respiratory and skin problems compared to those who live further away.
A survey conducted at random by Yale University surveyed 492 people in 180 households with ground-fed water wells in Pennsylvania and data showed that two out of five people or 39%, of people who live less than a kilometer from a well reported upper- respiratory symptoms, compared to 18% living more than 2 kilometers away (Koch, W. 2014, September 10).
If people are physically being affected by fracking, then it should be banned without question. In fact, a report issued by The New York State Department of Health stated that “until the science provides sufficient information to determine the level of risk to public health from High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing and whether the risks can be adequately managed, HVHF should not proceed in New York State (New York State Department of Health. 2017, December).” New York State’s Governor Andrew Cuomo postponed the fracking to evaluate the risks and in December 2014 came to the conclusion that fracking should be banned due to the “significant public health risks (New York bans fracking over ‘significant health risks’ 2017, December 14).” So far, New York, and Maryland have both banned the process of fracking due to the negative impacts on public health. Massachusetts and Vermont have also banned fracking due to lack of resources (Hirji, Z., & Song, L. 2015, January 20). Many states have strict regulations on fracking and although only few states so far have prohibited fracking it is not impossible to ban it all together.
These problems are just a few of many associated to fracking and drilling so before fracking continues to grow, the world must first consider all the negative effects that come with it.