Cultural Heritage In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

Alice Walker’s story “Everyday Use” is a story decipating family and heritage. She released the story with a collection of other short stories called In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women. This collection revealed Walker to be one of the finest of late twentieth century American short-story writers (Phy-Olsen). According to Cowart, the story address itself “to the dilemma of African Americans who are striving to escape prejudice and poverty.” One of the main characters, Dee, made drastic changes and would like her mother and sister to see things her way. Dee’s statement to her mother and sister regarding their disregard of heritage is very ironic considering the fact her name is a part of the family’s history, her new behavior, and her

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.

While Maggie was a very shy person who loved her mother and liked their way of living and didn't wanted to travel away like Dee did. Mama was an uneducated woman but was confident about herself and liked her way of living and she looked about herself as a hero that she was very poor but she was able to well educate her children and to make them not to be like her and she was tough person who worked anything to get money for her children just to make them better than her and well

In the story, she introduces two sisters with almost opposite personalities and different views on heritage: Maggie and Dee. She uses the contrast between the two sisters to show how one should accept and preserve one's heritage. Beyond the contrast between two sisters there exist the judge figure mom, the narrator and the Dee's irony. The irony on Dee's opinion is the key to understand the story and why the mother let Maggie keep the quilts, which symbolize the heritage.

Another reason why Maggie should get the quilt is,because she is always gracious. She doesn't get much as Dee does. According to "Everyday Use", "Maggie thinks her sister had held life always in the palm of one hand." This explains what Maggie thinks

As the story advances however, Dee does get more complex and is demonstrated to be battling with her own particular personality and heritage. Concrete subtle elements are expressed about Dee that lead you to know she is beautiful, smart and certain. Dee is described as thin with a little waste. She is a light cleaned dark individuals with a decent review hair. She is also well educated. Dee is fashion conscience, continually needing more pleasant things that were not affordable to her family. First and foremost of the story, Dee’s mother and sister, Maggie are is getting ready for Dee’s entry for a visit. Here is the place you get the first flash of Dee’s obvious identity. Maggie is portrayed by her mother as being apprehensive until after Dee goes when Dee hasn’t arrived yet. This persuades that maybe Maggie is threatened by Dee and maybe feels inferior compared to Dee. Dee’s mother discuss dreaming a fantasy about being welcomed by Dee with a grasp and tears in her eyes. All things considered Dee’s mother and sister don’t appear to feel just as they truly measures up to what Dee expects or needs them will be Dee’s mother never had much of an education and Dee’s mother raised enough cash to send Dee off to school. Maggie is specified as having poor sight and not being brilliant. Dee the again is smart.

Heritage is defined as something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth. In “Everyday Use”, by Alice Walker, the theme of the story can be considered as the meaning of heritage or even the power of education. Alice Walker uses many symbols and motifs such as the following: quilts, education, knowledge, Asalamalakim, and the renaming of Dee. In the story, African heritage and knowledge takes a major role.

Heritage has an influential role in every individual’s life. “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker is a short story that portrays two sisters’ from a poor African American home and their conflicting views on the value and meaning of heritage. Maggie, the younger sister, is uneducated but truly appreciates where she comes from. Dee, the oldest sister, is an educated college student but her she has a warped idea of heritage. Alice Walker uses the characters, point of view and symbolism to develop the main theme of heritage.

Maggie is the younger sister of the two. Parallel to Mama, Maggie also suffer from insecurities. Dee is lighter than Maggie with nicer hair and a fuller figure. Maggie was burned in the house fire and she shuffles when she walks. She is described as being shy, unable to make eye contact, and does not like to be seen when other people are around. The story tells how “she stand hopelessly in the corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arm and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe” (p.315). Maggie’s thought of her sister is that she has always held life in the palm of one hand, that’s “no” is a word the world never learned to

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

To begin with, in this story Maggie is not telling it but if it was in her point of view it would be a plot twist. She is just like her mother not much education, hard worker and true to her culture. Maggie is honored more she understood her culture. Her mother saw that she was rawer, unlike her sister Dee. They were always in competition, but most of the time Dee is always taking lead. She is shy not very confident and her mother agrees as well by saying, “Maggie would be nervous after her sister Dee leaves.” (Walker1) So soon enough the sisters both had men set out for them to be married. Maggie’s guy that is set out for her is very cultured knew where he came from. There is a quilt set out for both of them, a gift from their mother. The plan was to give them

However, when contrasted with the description we receive of Maggie, the description of Dee creates sympathy with the reader because it seems unfair that Dee would be given the gift of beauty and Maggie was not. The picture is even bleaker when you factor in that Dee is Maggie's older sister and Maggie probably grew up realizing how beautiful Dee was, and hoping to one day be just as beautiful. Maggie's physical scars created by the fire and the description of Dee as beautiful leave the reader feeling a great amount of compassion for Maggie.

What is cultural heritage and what is its significance today in our society? Cultural heritage is what we call the legacy of physical science artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations. Sometimes there are moments when we openly decide to ignore our cultural heritage and focus on the other very worldly objects that surround our society. However, it’s important to note that many writers take time out of their day to write about their own cultural heritage instead of focusing on other things. The Harlem Renaissance began somewhere in the 1920’s and brought forth livelihood and amazing art along with incredible talent, this was known as the “New Negro Movement”, this all took place in Harlem, New York.

It was easy to feel anger and disrespect for the character Dee. She was described as lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure (444). From the very beginning of the story Dee showed herself as selfish and this trait was shown from her throughout the story. Dee wrote to

Even though Dee had told her mother that she would never bring her friend to the family’s house, she come home with her friend to show her friend that her family possess priceless traditional heritage and also she might have thought that it would be easy for her to claim those traditional artifact in presence of her friend. Also she might want to show her friend the struggle she had done by comparing the accomplishment she had achieved with the family’s current situation with which she can easily prove that she had achieved a lot with a very limited resources. She now values about the display and price about her past because she knows that they are gone and are rare now. She now values about the past because she wants to possess it to decorate her house and for display. She is trying to show her mom and sister how