Joe Sarnowski, in his article "Destroying to Save: Idealism and Pragmatism in Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use’", also points out this discrepancy but taking it one step further, arguing that even though it would be naive to claim Dee doesn’t have faults, she, “more than any other character in the story, identifies and pursues corrective measures against the oppression of African-American society and culture.” Her fault, Sarnowski says, is in not realizing how idealism and pragmatism are “intertwined” and how “privileging one undermines both”.