Alice Walker's Heritage

Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," is a story about a poor, African-American family and a conflict about the word "heritage." In this short story, the word "heritage" has two meanings. One meaning for the word "heritage" represents family items, thoughts, and traditions passed down through the years. The other meaning for the word "heritage" represents the African-American culture.

Alice Walker demonstrates the importance of heritage through Dee's thoughtless actions and Maggie's actions during her daily life.

In her short story “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker focuses on a rural family and their different interpretations of the African- American heritage. The story begins when Dee, the educated older daughter, comes to visit her Mama and younger sister, Maggie. The two sisters are completely different physically, mentally, and emotionally. Dee lives an educated and financially stable life with her boyfriend in the city, away from her family; while, Maggie lives an uneducated and poor life at home with her mother. Some may argue that there is no difference between Dee and Maggie’s Interpretations; however, Alice Walker uses characterization and different types of symbolism in her short story to show the difference between Dee and Maggie’s interpretations

Heritage is defined as something that is or can be inherited; such as in culture, tradition, or it can be something of importance handed down. Walker uses the quilts to represent the "creative legacy that African Americans have inherited from their maternal ancestor" and show the "value of the quilt in the Afro-American experience". In Alice Walker's short story, "Everyday Use", characterization of a mother and her daughters and the symbolism of the everyday use of a quilt are used to reveal the importance of heritage.

In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”, Walker juxtaposes two different daughters in their quest for a cultural identity. The narrator, their mother, talks about how each daughter is different; Dee went off to college and became well-educated, contrary to their impoverished and low status as black women in the south. Meanwhile, Maggie isn’t nearly as educated as Dee is, but is still literate. The entire story centers around Dee’s visit with her new Muslim significant other. The story’s climax is when Dee wants to take two special quilts back home, but those quilts are for Maggie. These precious quilts comprise their culture. Henceforth, Dee does not deserve to take the quilts with her because she has decided to take on a culture that varies significantly from her own and she is already used to getting what she wants.

     Alice Walker is an African American essayist, novelist and poet. She is described as a “black feminist.”(Ten on Ten) Alice Walker tries to incorporate the concepts of her heritage that are absent into her essays; such things as how women should be independent and find their special talent or art to make their life better. Throughout Walker’s essay entitled “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” I determined there were three factors that aided Walker gain the concepts of her heritage which are through artistic ability, her foremothers and artistic models.

In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," the message about the preservation of heritage, specifically African-American heritage, is very clear. It is obvious that Walker believes that a person's heritage should be a living, dynamic part of the culture from which it arose and not a frozen timepiece only to be observed from a distance. There are two main approaches to heritage preservation depicted by the characters in this story. The narrator, a middle-aged African-American woman, and her youngest daughter Maggie, are in agreement with Walker. To them, their family heritage is everything around them that is involved in their everyday lives and everything that was involved in the lives of their ancestors. To

In 1973, Alice Walker used her short story, Everyday Use, to share two separate points of views on heritage. Some people change their lifestyle, but show concern for their family’s physical mementos. In contrast, others continue to live by the same principles that they learned during their upbringing. Dee and Mama are completely black and white when it comes to their viewpoints; however, after reflecting on my own values, I see that I am gray in my opinion on the double meaning of heritage.

In the short story, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker there are a select few of themes and symbols. Alice Walker’s story telling on Mama, Dee, and Maggie’s life from when they were young until the present is crafted beautifully. The relationship between the three main characters is written throughout as Mama and Maggie sometimes have problems with Dee’s actions and responses. The most important theme in my opinion is the true definition of Heritage and understanding it. When Dee arrives at Mama’s house to visit she certainly doesn’t leave a good first impression with her new ways of life.

Have you ever heard of or wonder whom the activist and author Alice Walker is? Alice Malsenior Walker was born in 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. She is the youngest of eight children and her parents were sharecroppers. Walker lost the sight in her right eye when she was eight due to her brother having shot her eye with a BB gun. Even though she lost the sight in her eye it never stopped her, Walker published over 30 books, including novels and short stories, poetry, non-fiction books, and essays. Walker was also selected for many awards and honors, but the most notable one is the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel The Color Purple. While Walker is well known for her works in literature she is also known for being an activist. Walker’s early family life and the people she met played an important role in her becoming an activist.

Diaspora, is the spreading of people from where they originally came from. In many African American literacy texts, there are aspects of Diaspora throughout the story. Some of these Diasporic themes are power, trauma, and family. These themes help the reader to understand how these things can continue to be present after being separated or generations later. In the texts, The Color Purple, Breathe, Eyes, Memory, and Homegoing the authors tell the themes of power, trauma, and family through their characters stories, and shed light on culture and traditions.

In addition to setting, the use of symbols in “Everyday Use” also helps shape the theme of honoring heritage. Mama calls to her returning daughter and addresses her by her given name, Dee. Immediately, Dee corrects her mother and declares "she's dead" to the name Dee (Walker 138). In a rejection of "the oppression implied by the taking" of black slave names, she tells her mother that her name is now Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo (Ross 1229). Dee denies her real heritage in which she was named for her aunt Dice in a tradition that "could have carried it back beyond the Civil War” and instead embraces the distant aspects of her supposed heritage (Walker 140). The author's use of two names for Dee directly represents the two opposing views of honoring

It has been said that “One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.” What should matter is being true to oneself and loving the person that you have become. This short story is narrated by Mama who is telling her story of her two daughters, Dee and Maggie. Both daughters live their lives in very different ways. In Dee's case, she goes out to make all that she can of herself while leaving her mother and sister behind. Maggie stays at home with their Mama and makes the most out of what surrounds her. All three ladies have different perspectives of their own heritage and identity. The conflict in “Everyday Use” is that Mama has these two daughters fighting over a quilt. In the end, readers will find that what matters most is not forgetting where you come from and who you are as a person. In “Everyday Use” Alice Walker emphasizes to her readers the importance of self-identities and family through her use of conflict, setting, and characterization, suggesting that sometimes people are so motivated in pleasing others while neglecting the things that matter to them the most.

What does quilts and heritage have in common? Well obvious one is that quilts are often a piece of heritage from an elder relative that has often passed on; however, a quilt especial in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” can be represent what we do with our heritage. The plot, simply put, is the coming home of Dee. With this home coming is the rehashing of past events and reveals the contrasting attitudes and paths Dee and her sister Maggie all through the eyes of Mama. Taking the style, characters of Walker, this story and the theme more than likely is a commentary on African-American culture particular with heritage. The commentary mainly comes from mama as she compared not only Maggie to Dee but also Dee against herself.

The genuine appreciation of heritage and family is the focus of Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”. Dee and Maggie’s characters are the vessels that Walker uses to demonstrate the difference between appreciating possessions for their usefulness as well as their personal significance and their contrasting value as a trendy, materialistic connection. There is a palpable difference between Maggie and Dee, both in physical appearance as well as in personality traits and their treatment of the personal artifacts that come into play within the story is very telling of this.