Cathedrals and Everyday Use

We have read two great short stories recently. On called "Cathedrals" and one called "Everyday Use." They were both about how people interact with each other and the way they see life. They also talk about how people can change. In "Cathedrals," the wife has a blind man who she was friends with in the past come and visit her and her husband. The husband seems irritated by the fact that there was a blind man in his home, He had never meat a blind man before. At first, he was ignorant and a little mean, but after a night of food and drinks, he got to know him better and they seemed to have become good friends. They ended up drawing a Cathedral together after watching a program about them on TV. They had a real connection that the husband certainly did not think they would have in the beginning of the story.

"Everyday Use" is a story about a poor black family who lived out in the country. The mother and one daughter, Maggie, were very down to earth, normal people who worked for their food and money. But the other daughter, Dee, was different. She was pretty and very materialistic. Maggie always envied her. So after Dee went away to a private school and came back, she was very different. She started to believe that she should go back to her African roots. So she changed to an African name because she thought that they should be named after the people who had oppressed their people. Maggie and her mother thought she was strange and suddenly liked things that she had once hated. She acted very odd and seemed distant to her mother and sister.