The Use Of Tone In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

Usually when people want to suggest to do or get something, they find ways to make the idea look viable and allow the other person to feel safe with agreeing on the decision, but sometimes they might not fully agree or want to go with an option, that’s where persuasion and tone come into play. In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” excerpt, she tells the story of a black mother and her family, her daughter Wangero is looking forward to keeping a part of her family’s history, her grandma’s old quilts. In Wangero’s sentimental attempt at persuasion, she activates an appeal to logic and also creates a sweet tone to persuade her mother to give her the quilts instead of Maggie. Through the character of Wangero, Walker projects how family members see some

Walker conveys this through Wangero as it is written in the text: “Mama, Wangero said sweet as a bird. ‘Can I have these old quilts?’” (Walker 51). Wangero uses a sweet tone of voice in order to alter the way the message is heard by her mother, in this case, to make it sound like she is needy and is begging cutely to get Mama to give her the quilts, however; she fails at doing so due to Mama’s hardened emotions, she does not understand or value the concept of family possessions of the past and physical objects. Through Wangero’s use of a persuasive tone of voice, Walker presents the importance that weighs in a family’s heritage and culture which is filled with emotional and historical

With a sweet tone of her voice, Wangero attempts to move her mom to recognize how much she wants Grandma’s old quilts for a historical symbol of the culture and her ancestors. One of the times Wangero emphasized the importance of keeping the essence of the past through objects from the past is when she reminded her mother about Grandma’s old handmade quilts; which could also be related to some type of emotional attachment and memories with family members. Ultimately, Walker is focusing on persuasion through the use of key points that might suggest it to the target character to want or feel more like doing something in the favor of the character that wants to get that, she shows this through Wangero’s attempts for getting her mother to give her the quilts, personally if you want to advance or get something from a relationship with anyone- which benefits both of the persons, persuasion can be a good