Each of us is raised within a culture, a set of traditions handed down by those before us. As individuals, we view and experience common heritage in subtly differing ways. Within smaller communities and families, deeply felt traditions serve to enrich this common heritage. Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" explores how, in her eagerness to claim an ancient heritage, a woman may deny herself the substantive personal experience of familial traditions.
In “Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker, one of the characters, Dee, has changed her name and appearance to more traditional African ones. Dee says to her mother and sister, “You don’t understand your heritage!” This asks the question of whether a family's heritage should be up for display. Dee only knows a history of oppression in her family and rejects her own heritage. As for Mama, she understands that the family heirlooms, such as the family quilts, are ways to remember the people who used and made them.
In Alice Walker’s story “Everyday Use,” symbolism, allegory, and myth stand out when thinking about the characters, setting, and conflict in the story. The conflict is between the mother and her two daughters (Maggie and Dee). There is also the conflict between the family’s heritage (symbolized by the quilt, bench, and butter chum) and their different ways of life. Dee chose a new African name, moved to the city, and adopted a new way of life while Maggie and her mother have stay behind. The quilt (the most important symbol) represents the family’s heritage in that it is made of scraps of clothing worn by generations of family members. The quilt has been sewn by family hands and used on family beds. It has seen history and is history. Maggie and her mother see that that history is alive but Dee thinks it is as dead as her name. Dee does not see that name as part of her heritage. By analyzing these symbols, a number of possibilities for a theme can be seen. Walker could be suggesting that to understand the African-American heritage, readers have to include the present as well as the past. However, the theme could be that poverty and a lack of sophistication and education cannot be equated with ignorance. Lastly, she could be telling her readers that dignity or self-respect rise from and are virtually connected to one’s entire heritage- not just a selected part of it.
Heritage is a standout amongst the largest critical elements that address where individuals came from. Everyday Use By Alice Walker, the short story uncovers heritage genuinely express and what it may be portrayed as. In the story, we are acquainted with a mother and daughter, Mama and Maggie, who awaits the arrival of Dee (Mama’s daughter) from Spelman College. Walker uses various methods to help the readers expose culture within the family.
Heritage is something that comes to or belongs to one by reason of birth. This may be the way it is defined in the dictionary, but everyone has their own beliefs and ideas of what shapes their heritage. In the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, these different views are very evident by the way Dee (Wangero) and Mrs. Johnson (Mama) see the world and the discrepancy of who will inherit the family’s quilts. Symbolism such as certain objects, their front yard, and the different characters, are all used to represent the main theme that heritage is something to always be proud of.
Alice Walkers “Everyday Use”, is a story about a family of African Americans that are faced with moral issues involving what true inheritance is and who deserves it. Two sisters and two hand stitched quilts become the center of focus for this short story. Walker paints for us the most vivid representation through a third person perspective of family values and how people from the same environment and upbringing can become different types of people.
Everyday Use: Family Heirlooms
In her short story Everyday Use, Alice Walker talks about a Mother Mama, and her two daughters Dee and Maggie, their personalities and reactions to preservation of their family heirlooms. She shows that while Dee has been sent to school for further education, Maggie is left at home and brought up in the old ways. Mama often dreams and longs for the day she can be reunited with Dee, like in the TV shows. She knows this may not be possible because Dee would read and shower them with a lot of knowledge that was unnecessary, only to push them away at the right moment, “like dimwits” (313); Mama and Dee have different conceptions of their family heritage.
Not many people know their family’s heritage. Matters such as where their ancestors come from or what trials he or she went through are typically lost in the hands of time if not kept in check by members of the family. In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” that is not the case of Mama, the narrator of the story. However, for her elder daughter, Dee, it is, nor does she particularly care to know. Dee is a woman who does everything in the name of her style. One aspect that is clear she does not think is part of her style is her family’s meager lifestyle. In fact, it is safe to say that Dee has an inability to understand the meaning of ‘heritage’.
In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, the narrator, mama, tries to comprehend the true significance of heritage. “Heritage is something that comes or belongs to a person by reason of birth; an inherited portion” ("Heritage." Def.1). Mama later realizes and understands the meaning of heritage from the encounter she had with her two daughters Dee and Maggie (White). Dee is an extrovert African who is prideful and egotistical (White). She is an example of the Black Power Movement (White). She wears clothes in the African style and she changed her name to, Wangero (White). Dee is better educated than mama and Maggie and therefore looks down on them (White). She does not accept the American heritage and thus rejects it (White). Maggie is a reserved and low self-esteemed girl (White). She is resentful of her sister Dee because she is poised and beautiful (White). In the story, mama realizes that Maggie is the one who truly understands heritage although she is not well educated like Dee (White).
In the story there is a generational conflict between Mama and Dee, both of them have different views of the meaning of “heritage”. Each of them represent a different time period, Mama represents the wisdom of her heritage but Dee on the other hand has not been able appreciate what has been passed down by the quilts. The irony of the story is when Dee tells Mama “You just don’t understand … your heritage” (Walker 491). This is irony because Dee thinks that changing her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo and wearing African clothing will get her to what she considers her true heritage. She has constructed a new, but falsely, heritage to represent her African heritage, she has little understanding of what she considers her true heritage. In the