Everyday Use Family Heritage Analysis

The Importance of a Family’s Heritage Many parents want their children to take their heritage into consideration and respect it. African-Americans deal with their culture very strongly due to their traditional backgrounds. The short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker includes a mother and her daughters Dee and Maggie who share their own thoughts about the meaning of heritage. The mother is referred as Mama and she waits outside in the yard with her younger daughter Maggie for Dee’s arrival. Mama struggles to get Dee to understand the importance of their family’s legacy. On the other hand, Maggie lives with Mama and is described with personality traits such as a shy young girl. When Dee arrives back home to her family Mama notices that everything
about Dee is different.
Mama will then continue to provide evidence throughout the story describing why her heritage is considered as a big deal. We can identify the theme of a family heritage in “Everyday Use” by using symbolism, analysis characteristics, foreshadowing, and point of view. While symbolizing the quilts it provides information about a family heritage and how they were handmade by generations of family members. The quilts were made with pride from ancestors wardrobes and creative ideas for the purpose of using them for an everyday use. For instance, in both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandma Jarrell’s Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezras uniform that he wore in the Civil War” (847). We can include that women in the African-American culture had unique thoughts of collecting old pieces from family members and turning them into quilts in order to
feel the warmth of a family’s heritage. And its existence. The quilts not only represent a deep bond between Mama but also to her ancestors. Mama has a difficult time when she tries to explain to Dee that the meaning of the quilts represent connections with her own people. The family then have an argument with Dee because she is insisting on taking the quilts back home with her. Mama tries her best to fit her daughter Dee needs despite their differences among their meaning of heritage, but not this time when Mama has had the last straw with Dee. Mama believes that Maggie’s should keep the quilts and so she then did something very rare. As Mama describes, “I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangeros hand and dumped them into Maggie’s lap” (849). Therefore Mama believes that the quilts should be given to Maggie because she did help make them. She insists that the quilts should be used for an everyday use instead of being hanged up for Décor by Dee. The quilts are not just your ordinary quilts, but they hold a close tie between a family cultures. While analyzing characteristics it tends to show that some family members disagree on following a traditional heritage. Dee can be shown as the antagonist of the story who sees her heritage as a disgrace to her future. Dee embraces her thoughts about her heritage when she arrives home to Maggie and Mama explaining that she doesn’t want to continue following her family origins. When Dee blurts out that she changed her name Mama begins to distrust her. For example, Mama says, “What happened to Dee?” “She’s dead.” Wangero said. “I couldn’t bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me” (846). Mama is hurt by her daughter’s reactions towards her African-American culture because she was named after her Aunt. Dee changed her name because she wanted a new beginning for her new future. Dee’s character traits can prove that some individuals would rather create a new heritage hen following their real heritage. Foreshadowing takes place when Mama is feeling disrespected by her daughter Dee when she is trying to defend her heritage. In the beginning of the story, Mama dreams a dream of her and Dee on a T.V show and both of them express their feelings towards their thoughts about each other over the years. For instance, “Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers” (843). When Mama is describing her orchid dress she explains how Dee once talked bad about her dress. Therefore, the incident of the dress shows evidence of foreshadowing that Dee’s outspoken thoughts and negative personality is still the same with her mother. Furthermore, leading up to Mama being refusal towards the quilts are foreshadowed when the mother is disagreeing with everything that Dee has done while she was away. Mama begins to show a different side of herself to Dee by saying no to her. Dee has always got whatever she wanted from her mother as a child, so when Mama argues with her she is speechless. For a second, Mama thought back to when she “had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style.” (846). This reminded her that Dee’s attitude hasn’t changed. Mama wanted Dee to realize that she didn’t deserve the quilts because she hasn’t shown any respect towards her heritage. In “Everyday Use” the point of view is told by first person. The narrator who explains the meaning of heritage is known as the mother of Dee and Maggie. Walker uses the characters of Mama, Dee, and Maggie to relate to Zora Neale Hurston who shared family struggles against her heritage. Neale Hurston is referred to Dee and express her thoughts about growing up in an African American culture. For example, Walker wrote, “There were the extreme highs and lows in her life, her undaunted pursuit of adventure, passionate emotional, sexual experience, and her love of freedom.” (963). At the time that Zora was losing herself in her African-American lifestyle, she begin to take advantage of her freedom on exceeding on her dreams in order to confront herself during difficult times. Zora had her entire life planned out to find herself. For instance, “Like Billie and Bessie she followed her own road, believed in her own gods, pursued her dreams, and refused to separate herself from “common people” (968). In this case, it’s obvious that Zora is reflection of Dee because they both separated themselves from family members in order to have a life of success. The point of view of “Everyday Use” is to get others to realize the type of struggles African-Americans had to go through in order to live a life full with happiness. In “Everyday Use’ the theme of a family’s heritage was shown by symbolism, analysis characteristics, foreshadowing, and point of view.
Walker introduced the quilts to represent the significance of an African-American culture. The mother wanted her children to understand that keeping a family’s heritage is important in an African-American society. A family’s heritage is a main key in life because it is a going on tradition from past ancestors. The theme is represented by Mama and her daughters to get a strong point of view of what some families go through to understand the reputation of growing up with a strong culture. The author shows a family’s close bond and the quilts they share with one another. Walker shares the meaning of an African-American heritage and hopes to get the reader’s attention in understanding the importance of an individual’s background. Heritage is an important concept in today’s society, because it allows us to communicate with our backgrounds. Heritage allows us to understand previous generations and history of where we come
from.