Commentary On Heritage And Heritage In Alice Walker's Heritage

Dee wants to emerge as dependent on her African heritage. She changes her family’s name to more African style name, Wangero. Dee also changes her fashion style to a more traditional African style. Dee depends on her new heritage as history, while her mother dependence of it is practical use. Dee pushes away her mother’s traditional values, but keeps the history of them instead of their everyday use. Mama’s heritage is close to dying as the practical use of the remaining items are becoming endanger of be forgotten. Dee’s mother sees these heirlooms for their practical uses and wants Maggie, Dee’s sister, to have them. Mama believes Maggie will most likely use them for their intended purposes and continue using them. Mama doesn’t want to see her other daughter changing the meaning of her heritage. Dee has no clue of her African heritage. Only things from her true past is her African heritage and her family’s heirlooms: the carved dashers and quilt. She views these’s artifacts as display objects and not for their actual practical use anymore. She pivots herself away from her family’s true heritage of poor black farmers and wants to value it differently as art and history.
Art is history. Art is heritage. Dee’s new vision of her heritage is completely different from her mother’s vision, but Dee’s ideas for the family’s heritage is more correct when trying to preserve it. She values the past artifacts differently and wants to try to preserve her family’s heritage as art in her new apartment. Dee changes her name to a more African style name, Wangero as well as her clothing style too. She wants to express her family’s culture as history, using the carved dashers and quilts to display them like art, which is her version of heritage and better appreciation of them. Dee cherishes her African heritage and wants to preserve it as her mother is trying to hold on to the current tradition of it and fails to envision Dee’s new idea of their