It was first published in the April 1973 issue of Harper's Magazine and is part of Walker's short story collection In Love and Trouble.

Dee (Wangero) only wants the family heirlooms to display in her home for their "artistic value", whereas Maggie and her mother cherish these items because they "remind them of their loved ones.

[5] Due to the fact that readers are getting only one viewpoint, it is uncertain if Dee truly does exhibit these characteristics or if it is only Mama's opinion of the eldest daughter that is being forced upon us.

[5] This is evidenced during Mama's daydream of Dee and herself on an imaginary popular talk show under the context of children who have "made it".

As the story concludes, the audience is left with the vision of Mama and Maggie remaining alone on the front lawn basking in the simplicity of each other and the straightforward life that has been built.

[citation needed] In the essay "Stylish vs. Sacred in 'Everyday Use'" written by Houston A. Baker and Charlotte Pierce-Baker Dee or Wangero is called a "goddess".

After highlighting a few passages from the story, it is mentioned that Dee/ Wangero has joined the black nationalists of the 1960s and 1970s and she shows it by changing both her name and her style.

The essay doesn’t see Dee/ Wangero as an activist of that cause but as someone being "manipulated by the style-makers" as illustrated by the scene in which she described the quilt, for which she passionately fought for later in the story, as "old-fashioned and out of style".

African-American women, often regarded as voiceless ‘mule(s) of the world’, inherited such creative legacies from maternal ancestors and their quilts have come to represent black heritage.

[12] The self-expression involved in quilt-making allowed women to take control of their lives through the only medium society permitted them to use.

The communal nature of quilting strengthened the bonds of sisterhood and helped to move marginalized women from enslavement to empowerment.

Quilting allowed these women to assert control over the colonial practice of slavery as enforced by white hegemony.

By sewing cotton into their quilts, African-American slaves formed a bond with nature, which replaced the hegemonic relationship enforced by slavery.

[13] Black slaves often attended communal Quilting Bees, which offered these oppressed women the opportunity to create social bonds unsupervised.

[14] Jennifer Martin explains in her article "The Quilt Threads Together Sisterhood, Empowerment, and Nature in Alice Walker's The Color Purple and 'Everyday Use'", "When women participate in the tradition of quilting this trinity of strength provides a positive channel for them to mend together the pieces of their lives and to move from fragmentation to fusion... Martin emphasize the quilt provides a bond between the sisters and females because in the African American community often times women are oppressed[15].Quilting is not an end-point where women achieve elusive wholeness, but a way to meld together parts of their lives and achieve power from the joining of all the components that make them unique.

Matthew Mullins argues in his essay, "Antagonized by the Text, Or, It Takes Two to Read Alice Walker’s 'Everyday Use' however, that this perspective isn’t necessarily fair.

[19] Joe Sarnowski, in his article "Destroying to Save: Idealism and Pragmatism in Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use'", also points out this discrepancy but taking it one step further, arguing that even though it would be naïve to claim Dee does not have faults, she, "more than any other character in the story, identifies and pursues corrective measures against the oppression of African-American society and culture."