Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
References to eyes and vision are all over this story. Go ahead, count them—you'll see (har har).
Literal references to seeing in "Everyday Use" get us thinking about the more abstract idea of seeing things from other people's perspectives. Seeing or recognizing the perspectives of others (or at least trying to) is crucial to characters' ability to grow and change in this story. Not that any of this is easy. The narrator, for instance, struggles to see at times. We're told that when Dee and Hakim first arrive, for instance, "it is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun" (19) and that Dee wears "a dress so loud it hurts my eyes" (20).
But as the narrator gets a closer look at Dee, she realizes that she likes her dress, which is an important indication that she is accepting of Dee's African-centered identity or perspective. The narrator is receptive to seeing Dee in a new light even if it takes a little work on her part.
Perhaps even more dramatic is the narrator's willingness to look at Maggie in a different way, a willingness that sets into motion the pivotal action she takes at the end of the story. The narrator tells us:
When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. (16)
As we discuss in the narrator's write-up in the "Characters" section, her ability to imagine how Maggie sees the world prompts her to want to change Maggie's perspective for the better.
Dee, on the other hand, doesn't make much effort to see things from other people's perspectives. In fact, she tends to look at people in a way that deliberately suits her purposes. This is captured especially clearly when she stages those weird pictures of the narrator and Maggie in front of the house. She seems to want to create a quaint little image for herself of her "backward" rural family that she can hang on her refrigerator and use to authenticate her identity, regardless of how demeaning such an image might be to her mother and sister.
In this way, Dee fails bigtime to view things from her family's perspective, an attitude that persists throughout the story. Before riding away at the end, Dee makes a disparaging remark to Maggie and puts on "sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and her chin" (82), deliberately obscuring her view. Yup—she's still the same old self-involved character who refuses to recognize other people's feelings or to see anything from their perspective.