Dee may or may not have caused the house fire in Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use." She does, however, watch the fire consume the house as she stands nearby under a tree. Dee has only contempt for the old house and what it represents to her. She surely must know that the loss of the house will devastate Maggie and her mother, but she does nothing to try to prevent the house from burning to the ground. Dee does not appreciate practicality or the life that Maggie and her mother live in the old house. Dee only wants to take relics of the house to put on display; she does not intend to use them or to appreciate them for their usefulness. The old house cannot be reimagined as an item to put on display or as a cultural image to be exploited, and therefore, Dee eagerly watches it burn.
The text does not actually tell us who caused the fire. We cannot conclude that Dee was the one responsible for the fire.
However, the text does tell us that Dee watched the house burn from afar. We can perhaps say that Dee was responsible in the sense that she did nothing to save the house.
The text tells us that Dee was standing under a sweet gum tree while the house was burning. Apparently, Dee watched with fervent interest until she was sure that the last board had fallen in toward the chimney.
At the time, the narrator admits that she was tempted to ask Dee why she did not do a dance of victory over the ashes of the house. The narrator knows that Dee hated the old house. From the text, we also learn that Dee appreciates "nice things" and harbors contempt for the way the narrator and Maggie choose to live.
We can only speculate about the cause of the fire because the text does not reveal who started the fire. At the same time, we can say that Dee was responsible in the sense that she did nothing to save the house. She actually rejoiced in the burning of the house.
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