Symbolism In The Century Quilt By Marilyn Nelson Waniek

The essays, “My Kiowa Grandmother,” by N. Scott Momaday and “Take My Saddle from the Wall: A Valediction,” by Larry McMurtry, both seek to understand the values and traditions of an old way of life that has been lost to the trials and tribulations of time. By reaching back into history through their families, both authors achieve the same effect, while using starkly contrasting narrative structure; they show the characteristics that have been lost to younger generations.

In the poem Heritage by Linda Hogan, Hogan uses the tone of the speaker to demonstrate the shame and hatred she has toward her family, but also the desire for her family’s original heritage. The speaker describes each family member and how they represent their heritage. When describing each member, the speaker’s tone changes based on how she feels about them. The reader can identify the tone by Hogan’s word choices and the positive and negative outlooks on each member of the family.

Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel, Ceremony, reveals how the crossing of cultures was feared, ridiculed, and shunned in various Native American tribes. The fear of change is a common and overwhelming fear everyone faces at some point in their life. The fear of the unknown, the fear of letting go, and the fear of forgetting all play a part in why people struggle with change. In Ceremony the crossing of cultures creates “half-breeds,” usually bringing disgrace to their family’s name. In Jodi Lundgren’s discourse, “Being a Half-breed”, is about how a girl who struggles with understanding what cultural group she fits into since she is a “half-breed.” Elizabeth Evasdaughter’s essay, “Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony”: Healing Ethnic Hatred by

Different cultures around the world utilize different techniques to pass on family histories. The Hmong culture makes story tapestries and West African tribes use song and oral story to pass on their traditions. In the poem, “The Century Quilt,” poet Marilyn Nelson Waniek shares the story of one family’s heritage and the role blankets play in telling the family history. Waniek uses the literary devices of shifts, symbolism and colors to show the complexities of the speaker’s heritage, and how the familial relationships in her life have shaped her.

This piece of text assists the fact that the quilts, a family heirloom, represents a person and that the object is in some way a memorial for them.  Maggie from “Everyday Use” recollects memories and time spent with her grandmother when she views the quilts, the quilt is a symbol of her grandmother in her life as it has attached

In the poem “The Century Quilt” by Marilyn Nelson Waniek the speaker uses symbolism and tone to convey a deeper meaning behind the quilt. The speaker’s symbolism displays the diversity in the speaker’s family. The speaker’s tone conveys pride in their family. Each square of the quilt represents a different section of the speaker’s family, and past occurrences.

Marylin Nelson, a poet and children’s book author, wrote her poem “The Century Quilt” in the twentieth century for a quilter named Sarah Mary Taylor. For Nelson, her life was influenced based on a family member’s item. Nelson expresses through the poem the impact that her Meema’s quilt had on her life through theme, symbolism, and vivid imagery.

Within the poem “The Century Quilt” created by Marilyn Nelson Waniek, she describes a girl a quilt that reminds her of family. The author uses a literary technique that helps the readers find out the complex meanings she had towards the blanket. Firstly, a technique the author used with structure helped the character described in the poem tells the readers about the special blanket. The author picks her words very carefully using only kind descriptions, such as being in love and having good dreams, to give the audience a relaxing feeling as they read the poem.

In Marilyn Nelson Waniek’s The Century Quilt a strong sense of structure, tone, and imagery is employed to develop complex meanings that the speaker wants to convey to her audience. By organizing each stanza chronologically, using a nostalgic tone, and allowing for imagery to represent more than what is written, Waniek successfully creates a theme- family is a source of comfort and endures the course of life.

Alice Walker attempts to depict the different ways of viewing heritage and identity of an African American family. During the first read, the audience sides with the narrator and Maggie against Dee/Wangero. The reader can see Dee/Wangero antagonist of the story. However, this is not the only way to interpret “Everyday Use”. Walker has created a more complex story than just right and wrong. After further analysis, the reader comes to understand that Wangero view of her cultural heritage and identity as a black woman in America is different than the view that Maggie and the narrator have. Wangero values the quilts differently than her family, however that does not mean she is the enemy in the story.

In the story, the author places a quilt, an object that represents African America traditions, to show us the different perspective that a couple of sisters has about family heritage.

How does one define oneself? Is it through land, oral tradition, or language? If we were to ask Simon Ortiz, one of the leading Native American writers, he would answer, to an extent, all of the above. In agreement to Ortiz, Kieu also identify herself through these three factors. “They are all connected in one way or another,” she says. Although these two authors have a completely different background, one being a Native American while the other is a Chinese-Vietnamese-American, they share the same feeling about their identity—that is, they identify themselves through their relation to land, oral tradition, and language.

Christian was reviewing many stories about African-American cultures that focused on women and she happened to stumble on an article called “Everyday Use. “Although she’s reviewing several stories at a time, Christian primary focuses on the story by Alice Walker “Everyday Use”. As she discusses Walkers story, she starts to understand the mother’s heritage of the quilts, which had played an important role in the black power movement during that era. In the end, Christian explains the importance of “Everyday Use”, including mentioning other articles to explain how it dealt with black power as well as the African-American culture. This article is useful for the ones who want to understand why Dee’s mother see’s the quilts as an important history

“Everyday Use,” a modern classic written by Alice Walker tells the story of a mother and her two daughters’ conflicting outlooks on identity and heritage. Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton unveils the main themes within the story notably concerning the characters’ connections to their ancestral roots. Dee and Maggie’s relation to their heritage rest on the memories of their mothers and grandmothers possessions. Piedmont-Marton expresses the importance of these possessions, particularly the quilt as “quilting symbolizes the process out of which the unimportant and meaningless may be transformed into the valued and useful.” Quilts designed for everyday use are unified wholes of “faded patches” where the “stitching resembles healing.” Piedmont-Marton

In “Everyday Use” author Alice Walker takes us back to a time when free African American men and women searched for their identity by connecting to their roots. This story focusses on the Johnson family and their struggles on how to keep in touch with their heritage and cultural identity. Country born and bred Momma and Maggie have a set way of life and roots like a tree, whereas Dee, Momma’s oldest daughter struggles with her identity. The idea of how to best use the quilts her ancestors made seems more like an outside viewer than a family member.