Compare “Everyday Use” And The “Prodigal Son”

Compapare “Everyday Use” and the “Prodical Son” The stories, Everyday Use and The Prodigal Son, comparatively illustrate themes of jealousy and ungratefulness between siblings. From Biblical to present day times siblings have been fighting over material possessions. It is easy for people to get material possessions confused with love. They confuse these possessions that come from their elders with material worth.

Jealousy is illustrated in both stories. In Everyday Use, the climax of the story is when the grandmother and Dee are making a quilt for Maggie. Dee (Wangaroo) is jealous of Maggie because the quilt is being made for Maggie. The quilt is composed of the grandmother’s old dresses. Dee forgets that her grandmother offered her a quilt when she was going away for college, but at the time she told her grandmother they were “old-fashioned and out of style.” Now she wants the quilt simply to have it, to get it away from her sister. The story The Prodigal Son illustrates jealousy between two siblings. The older brother is jealous of the younger brother. He is jealous because of how his father treats the younger brother after the younger brother returns from a foreign land. The younger brother went to a foreign land with his father’s money and lost it all. He returned to his father when a famine happened and apologized for losing all his money. The younger brother told his father he was only worth to be one of his father’s slaves. His father threw a party for his return. The older brother gets jealous because every day he works for his father and never gets a party. His father was happy because “”¦for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again: and was lost, and is found.” The father was simply happy that his son had repented and returned to him. He had realized the seriousness of his sins.

In both stories the siblings portray ungratefulness. The siblings all confuse material possessions with how much their elders love them. In Everyday Use, Dee does not realize at the time how much the quilt her grandmother wanted to make for her meant to her. It was only through her jealousy of Maggie that she realized that she wanted a quilt. Dee failed to realize that true love does not live in material possessions. In the story The Prodigal Son the older brother confuses a father’s love with money. When the older brother finds out about the party he “”¦becomes angry, and would not go in the party. He becomes ungrateful to just have his father’s love. He wants the money and the parties that his father rewarded his other son just for repenting. Real love is much more than money, the siblings in these stories forget this.

Both stories illustrate the importance of love not being a material thing. Both stories have a definite moral lesson. Both stories exemplify how it is more important to have the person rather than any material possession. The siblings in the stories Everyday Use and The Prodigal Son portray jealousy and ungratefulness to the other siblings.