Family Values

NOTES ON “FAMILY VALUES” ESSAY

I. Intro about importance of family

A. Older people pass down their experience

B. This is important as it keeps values alive and is good for the future.

C. This can be seen in “Everyday Use,” “Girl,” and “The Lesson.”

II. “Everyday Use” (1125-1131)

A. Mama is the “teacher.”

B. She must protect Maggie from Dee.

C. Maggie represents the goodness: the purity and innocence of the country.

D. Dee represents modernization and the city-way of looking at life.

E. Mama must see to it that the family stays intact.

III. “Girl” (123-124)

A. A mother instructs her daughter about how to act with morals and dignity.

B. Surviving with everyday chores.

C. Handling the responsibilities of “being seen.”

D. How to act with the opposite sex.

E. How to act in the grocery store.

F. The mother wants her daughter to take pride in herself.

IV. “The Lesson” (654-659)

A. Told from 1st Person point of view - Sylvia narrates

B. Miss Moore must teach the “street kids” how to rise above their condition.

C. She takes them to F.A.O. Schwarz, Fifth Avenue, NYC.

D. They see items way over-priced for those items’ usefulness and practicality.

E. Kids learn that it “ain’t fair that there’s inequality.” Sugar says, “I think that this is not much of a democracy if you ask me. Equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough, don’t it?” (659).

F. Sylvia ends with, “but ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin” (659).

V. Values have been passed along in these three stories from one generation to the next. There might be clashes here and there, but “good ultimately survives.”

IN:

Literature for Composition. Edited by Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, and William E. Cain. 10th Edition.

New York: Pearson, 2014. [total page numbers]. Print.