Character Traits and Making Inferences

Making an inference is taking information you have acquired and use it to make a educational guess about a certain question. Inferences are not always the same through out one event it can be changed as information is handed to you. In the story Everyday Use the relationship between the characters are unclear at the beginning, all we know is that they are blood related.

In the story there are three main characters Maggie, Dee, and the Narrator herself. On the first page of the book it clearly shows that they lived together and where pretty close to each other. Therefore I believe that they are a family.  Then there are details that show their relationship even better. the first two paragraphs it mentions that Maggie and the Narrator cleaned the yard together while waiting for Maggie's sister, this point of information allows me to make an inference that the sister is not the Narrator. Then it goes on saying how Maggie is jealous of her sister's body, because Maggie has scars on her arm and leg. Then Dee being another family member seems to have a good life and is very happy. The Narrator describes a dream she has about her and Dee going on TV and was being complimented by the host of the TV show.

With all the information given in the first four paragraphs I made an inference about the relation ship between Dee, Maggie, and the Narrator. I guessed that Dee and Maggie where sisters and that the Narrator was probably the mother. Then having to guess the whether Dee or Maggie was older i looked back to the first paragraph to find more details that would help. From reading the first line I got my guess. I guessed that Maggie was the older sister waiting for the younger sister to come home. Also from the personalities of Dee and Maggie. Dee seemed to be very open and jolly all the time and Maggie was a bit more depressed, this made me think that Maggie was a bit more mature than Dee. Even though have being jealous of Dee's normal body Maggie to me still seemed like the older sister. Jealously happened to all ages and in many different forms, who doesn't get jealous from time to time?

In the end i found the true answers to the question which i made an inference to. Dee was actually the older sister and this didn't surprise me because through out the story Dee acted more like an older sister. On the other hand Maggie was acting a bit more childish which made me change my mind later on. I believe that this is a good example of making an inference and how accepting new information can change your mind, like I changed mine because of the extra information I got while I read on.