Everyday Use By Alice Walker Heritage Summary

In Everyday Use, Alice Walker tells a story of a mother's conflicted relationship with her two daughters. On its surface, "Everyday Use tells how a mother gradually rejects the superficial values of her older, successful daughter in favor the practical values of her younger, less fortunate daughter. On of deeper level, Alice Walker is exploring the concept of heritage as it applies to African-America Everyday Use is set in the late 60s or early '70s. This was time when African-Americans a were struggling to define their personal identities in cultural terms. The term "Negro" had been recently removed from the vocabulary, and had been replaced with "Black." There was "Black Power Black Nationalism," and "Black Pride," Many blacks wanted to
Johnson snatches her ancestors' quilts from her daughter Dee, who wants to hang them on a wall, and gives them to Maggie, Walker illuminates her life-long celebra of rural Southern black womanhood. The motif of q ng has since become central to Walkers concerns, because it suggests the strength to be found in connecting with one's roots and one's past. As with many other stories by Walker, "Everyday Use" is narrated by the unrefined voice of a rural black woman, in the authors attempt to give a voice to a tradi onally disenfranchised segment of the population. Walker's main purpose in the story seems to be to challenge black in general to people acknowledge and respect their American heritage. The history of Africans in America is filled with stories of injustice, and humiliation. It is not as pleasing as a colorful African heritage that can be pain, s fabricated like a quilt, from bi and pieces that one finds