Read the following passage and answer the questions:
This text below is taken from Alice Walker's short story “Everyday Use”. Please answer the following questions according to the excerpt:
Maggie will be nervous until after her sister 1 goes: she will stand hopelessly in comers, homely and ashamed of the bum scars down her arms and legs, eying 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 the world never learned to say to her.
You've never doubt seen those TV shows where…mother and child embrace and smile into each other's faces…Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort…
In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I'm the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Jonny Carson 2 has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue.
…
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. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can't see well… She will marry John Thomas and then I'll be free to sit here, and I guess just sing churchsongs to myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a tune. I was always better at a man's job.
Notes:
1. Maggie and Dee are the daughters of the narrator. “her sister” refers to Dee.
2. Jonny Carson is a very popular TV host in 1960s in the States.
Questions:
Paraphrase the underlined sentence between the asterisks in paragraph 1.
Dee is a beautiful girl. She doesn't have any ugly scares on her body, so Dee will be confident to achieve everything. Nothing will be impossible if a person has enough confidence.
What kind of person is “T” according to the excerpt?
“T” is a laborious man. For mama said if Maggie gets married with him, mama herself doesn't need to do the heavy housework.
What writing skills are used to construct the narrator's image? What artistic effect does this kind of narration achieve?
The author broke the traditional way of time and space when writing. Most of this excerpt is the mama's consciousness during which the author tells us some information about the family by memory and section. This writing skill adds the difficulty of understanding this article, while because of it this article is full in modernity.
Comment on the underlined sentence between the asterisks in the last paragraph and explain what social movement influenced the ethnic Americans when the story happened?
At that time, the social status of black people is very low and they are almost deprived of the right of obtaining education. Consequently, they are poor in knowledge and this is a vicious circle--their offspring could not be raised in an educated family. The nationalism movement awakened the conscious of the ethnic American that they have been ill-treated for so long.