Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Contemplative; Slightly Amused
In "Everyday Use," the narrator is thinking over a lot of stuff, much of which has already taken place. In the early parts of the story, virtually everything she looks at reminds her of something from the past. When Maggie first comes into the yard, for instance, the sight of her prompts the narrator to think about the fire at their first home and its impact on her children, which then leads her to meditate on Dee's relationship with Maggie. And then that causes her to think about the fancy dress Dee wanted to wear to graduation. Whew, this woman's brain is working overtime!
Of course, this all makes perfect sense given that she's waiting for Dee to show up. The narrator's swirl of thoughts clues us in to the fact that there's a whole lot of potential for conflict during Dee's visit, and that we're in for a very interesting afternoon.
When Dee does make her grand appearance, the tone shifts a little. We're not inside the narrator's head or memories as deeply as we were before—now she's more focused on telling us about the encounter with her guests. Here, we can't help but detect that the narrator is a little amused by Dee's and Hakim-a-barber's over-the-top, showy behavior. This attitude comes out in her description of the scene. She notices, for example, Hakim-a-barber making a big production of shaking hands with Maggie and says that he "wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don't know how people shake hands" (23). Ha.
The narrator's way of repeatedly inserting Wangero in parentheses when referring to Dee also seems a bit tongue-in-cheek. It's like she's letting us readers know that, yeah, sure, she's going along with Dee's whole embracing of African heritage thing, but she can't resist pointing out the irony of it all, like when she tells us:
I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. (67)
It's lucky for us that the narrator can help us find some humor during such an awkward situation.