Alice Walker's Everyday Use And The Heritage Of A Family

Research Paper Final Draft
“Continuing a Tradition” Everyday Use and the Heritage of a Family. What is tradition? How do we classify tradition in this modern day? Better yet, how do we continue a tradition passed down from generation to generation through the family tree? To explore these thought provoking questions, Alice Walker’s “ Everyday Use”, Torsney and Elsley’s “Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern”, and “Heritage and Deracination” by David Cohort analyze the historical context of quilting in the 20th Century. I will be using excerpts from my personal narrative, various scholarly papers and Alice Walker’s works herself. I intend to provide textual evidence of what the quilt signifies and the struggles of their family during the
20th Century. This paper will help you understand how difficult it was for them to truly appreciate where their culture came from originally. My assertion is that the quilt represents heritage of the family passed down from generation to generation and African American heritage and deracination, which shows the trials and tribulations of African Americans during the 20th Century.
Upset by what she feels to be oppression to her family name, Dee decides to changes her name and entire identity, and reject her heritage per say to perpetrate a person with an African heritage. Due to Dee who now is referred to as Wangero knowing nothing of African culture, religion, or heritage, everything she wants to be perceived as is false. However, the new name just like the clothes and jewelry she wears is meaningless. This is mainly because she has no true knowledge of that lifestyle. Furthermore, Wangero believes that her real heritage is dead and is something of the past with no meaning whatsoever. Shocked by all of what Wangero has done since leaving home, Mama shows signs of melancholy about the statements made by Wangero pertaining to their heritage.
Mama and Maggie have a different frame of reference pertaining to heritage. They see it as objects infused by the ancestors of their past. Wangero desires the quilt and other heirlooms to boast and brag about her family lineage. Wangero only views them as artifacts of the past and not for everyday use. The quilt itself is Wangero true identity and origin of her heritage that she feels that is worthless to speak about. Furthermore, Wangero knows nothing about the past. She does not understand that the quilt symbolizes family lineage and represent a story told through worn garments used to make an item that would be of everyday use. Even though she tries to act as if she is connected to her ancestors she really is not. Wangero eagerness to hang the quilt as a museum like display, only suggests that she has great respect for it, but treats it like it’s a foreign, detached item. Mama understands that she must not give in to what Wangero wants her to do and that the quilt would be rather suitable for Maggie. Mama knows deep down inside that Maggie will use the quilt for everyday use, which it is meant for. When Wangero gets ready to depart she abruptly states to Mama and Maggie that they have no clue of what their heritage is; ironically walker is trying to state that it is actually Wangero who knows nothing of her true identity.

In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker the controversy is entirely do to the quilt.
Wangero, who is the big sister of Maggie and Mama’s oldest daughter, really wants the quilt. Wangero Is having a very difficult time understanding the true value of the quilt and what it truly represents, she does not fully understand the concept for the quilt. The quilt is a heirloom, which means that it has been transferred down from generation to generation. Quilts are normally made to tell stories but nevertheless provide warmth for the bearer of the quilt. In Cheryl B. Torsney and Judy Elsley, eds. Quilt Culture: Tracing the pattern they speculate that “ the quilt’s power as a metaphor arises from its doubleness: a quilt can be both “itself” (a bed covering, an heirloom, an artifact) and a representation of many other things (affiliations of class and gender, textuality, cultural patterns.) The double nature of the quilt reflexively poses inquiry into the multiple theories and social relationships that proliferate around the quilt’s purpose, evaluation, and signification. Noting the compelling and dynamic nature of the quilt as a metaphor, the editors found it odd that no previous volume had yet treated the quilt as a metaphor.” (Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern.1994.) The quilt can have so much representation, signify and symbolize a plethora of things, and Mama understands and wants Wangero to also understand the significance of the quilt in their family lineage but she
doesn’t.

Dee, who is now known as Wangero, understands and has now realized the dream of the oppressed, she has finally made it out of the ghetto. Wangero has strived long in hard since leaving and now finds herself back, but as a new type of person per say, only to be there for the quilt, this is during the Islamic Alternative period, when the black community broke off to form their on church during the 60’s. The Wangero we meet in the beginning of the short story basically represents the struggles of a generation during the early-mid 20th century. Wangero had left home to attend school in Augusta, Georgia where she became educated. Wangero believes that her African American past can be presented as commodities. She tries to emulate the white person of the 20th Century displaying her family heirlooms or artifacts. David Cohort states that “Everyday Use” can be read as a cautionary tale the author tells herself. “The Deracination of Wangero, that is, can represent the fate of anyone who, like the author, goes from sharecropper’s daughter to literary sophisticate. I refer here to an autobiographical dimension that proves interestingly unstable, for Walker’s self-depiction as Wangero actually displaces an intended self-depiction as Maggie.” (David Cohort, Heritage and Deracination in Alice Walkers Everyday Use 1996) in everyday use it is vividly showed that Wangero despises Maggie, her mother and the church who helped educate her. Maggie is the unlucky sister that never had a chance to become educated like Wangero, but in all reality is content with who she is and how her life is.
In conclusion, my assertion was that the quilt represented heritage of the family past, and that it was passed down from generation to generation and African American heritage and deracination, which showed the trials and tribulations of African Americans during the 20th century. Wangero is afraid to accept the fact that she has a deep rooted heritage, but she feels like its not good enough, that’s mainly the reason for her trying to obtain an authentic background but it’s false all along. She never gets the quilt or anything else to display in her home with her spouse.

Works Cited

1. David Cowart. "Heritage and deracination in Walker 's "Everyday Use". " Studies in Short Fiction 33.2 (1996): 171-184. Research Library, ProQuest. Web. 2 Dec. 2010.

2. LaFrance, Michelle. "Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern." Interdisciplinary Humanities 25.2 (2008): 129-134. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 2 Dec. 2010.

3. Walker, Alice. “In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Woman, San Diego, Mariner Books, 1974