What Is The Social Hierarchy?How Is It Being Changed By

Dee really doesn't understand her family past, but still, wants to keep them. In the poem, Dee changes her name to Wangero and never knew that she was named after her aunt.This tells you that Dee didn't really care about her family heritage and doesn't know a lot about her heritage.

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

People today believe that to be powerful you have to be known and rich. While that may be partly true, an individual is powerful if they possess the ability to show responsibility, courage, determination, and initiative.

The African heritage plays a major role in the story, “Everyday Use”. Alice Walker emphasizes the meaning of heritage by having Dee come visit her family and contradicting her heritage. As Dee go off to college, she meets new people and finds her a boyfriend, Asalamalakim. Alice Walker adds attention onto Dee’s new name, Wangero, because Dee changes her name, not understanding the true root of her original name. “No, mama,’ she says. ‘Not Dee, Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!’ ‘What happened to ‘Dee’?’ I wanted to know. ‘She’s dead…” (160). However, Dee truly believes that her heritage lies way back to Africa. The African clothes and name gives an understanding that Dee thinks that she is from Africa and that is where her heritage originally lies. In addition, Mama and Dee have different point of views on what heritage truly is. Mama tells Wangero (Dee) that her name comes from a line of ancestors, yet Wangero believes that her new name has more roots in it. “You know as well as me you were named after your aunt Dicie,’ I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We

Dee's inability to accept who she is can be seen as a weakness. Dee has turned her back on a part of her past by taking the Muslim name of "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo" (412). Her reason for changing her name was because she "couldn't bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me" (412). Her mother sees the action of the name change as Dee turning her back on her immediate blood relatives. Dee's insecurity concerning her past becomes evident, and her mother sees it as a denial of where she came from. It is as though she would rather claim the name of an unknown slave to that of her aunt and grandmother. Her biggest fear seems to be that by not declaring her heritage, she might someday have to return to the simple life of her mother and sister. Dee uses the

The concept of social class has been around for ages and is still a part of today’s society. Social class is not only based on the individual’s wealth but also on their social standing such as; monarchs, priests, nobles, merchants, and peasant class. The peasant class was practically ignored, which means that the higher classes would only pay attention to each other. This can be the case in society today, there are some people who feel that their career makes them higher than a janitor. Even though humans have been around for centuries, social class is still a big issue.

People consider that social stratification in the United States contains social classes such as upper class, middle class, and lower class. People who are categorizing in upper class not only have power and control over their own lives but also their social status gives them

To clarify, Walker’s narrative focuses on two classes of people: one lower and one higher. In general, Mama and Maggie represent a class that only appreciates practicality, whereas Dee and Hakim-a-barber represent a class that places more value on artistic interest. For example, when Mama asks Dee why she would rather be called Wangero, she explains that “[she] couldn 't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress [her]," (Walker). In effect, Dee’s new and dramatically different name exemplifies how serious she is about defining her identity with her new culture as opposed to remaining in the same culture as her Mama. In other words, Dee has taken the sole purpose of having a name, identity, and added a symbolism to it of her defiance. In another instance, when Dee sees her family’s butter churn, her

Society is set up into a hierarchical triangle that essentially determines social class. A social class is any person or group of people with the same educational, social or economical status. Social class can be broken down into many different categories such as race, age, gender, economic status, educational status and many more. Social class can be measured in many different ways such as financial status, family values, appearance, and demeanor. In America there are six main economical social classes which are the: Very poor, Poor, Working class, Middle class, Upper middle class, and the ruling class.

Dee shows that she does not value heritage by changing her name to Wangero. She adopts an African name "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo" and rejects her identity. She tells her mother that the name Dee is dead and that she "couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me". When Dee does speak of her changed name, "it's as if there is not even a tombstone to make the presence of her absence and it is as if her return seems less a return, she appears a curious visitor who has momentarily stopped off a road which began and ends elsewhere". Through heritage, her name was chosen after her aunt and Grandma Dee.

She now seems to be embracing and acknowledging her African roots and disowning her actual family heritage. Upon returning home, Mama, the protagonist, learns that she has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. This is the first her Mama has heard of this and it causes her to question Dee’s motive for doing so. After all, it appears Dee was named in the family tradition and to Dee’s Mama, her name is symbolic and seems to be a way of recognizing and honoring the women in the family by naming a baby girl of a later generation after their elders. Dee was named after her Mama’s sister, Dicie, who was named after her Grandma Dee, who was named after her mother. (Kirsner and Mandell, 2012, pg. 348). However, to Dee, her name is a symbol of oppression and humiliation and denotes things that she has come to believe are beneath her and her new status in life. She is now a beautiful, educated, and sophisticated woman, who is proud of her newly made self. She now seems to have renounced her past, completely missing the fact that it is her past and her heritage that played an important part of shaping her to be the woman she has become (“Characterization and Symbolism,”

As far as the narrator is concerned, Dee was named after her aunt Dicie, who was

Social class is defined as 'people having the same social or economic status' (Wordnet). In contemporary American society, social class is based on the amount of money and property you have and also prestige. Prestige is given to a person through the line of work or the family that they come from. For example, upper-upper class member Jennifer Lopez reeks of prestige not only because she has millions of dollars in her bank account, but she has very expensive luxuries, cars, and houses.

Each of these groups is stratified into its own class; the group of people ranked most closely to them in property, power, and prestige. A person’s position in the stratification system affects everything about their life, from what they think and expect in life to how they see the world, as well as what opportunities they will have access to. Although, your status is still assigned at birth, but you have the chance at upward social mobility based on material possessions that you acquire, or things that you achieve. Or you may be on the other end of the spectrum and experience downward social

Each social class has a certain power, and that power is their economic ability to change society. The four major classes are the capitalists, managers, small entrepreneurs and the workers. A persons clothing, housing and educational opportunities usually depend on their class, but that