In the story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, Walker writes about African American's traditional identity through the relationship between a mother and her two daughters, Dee and Maggie. Mama and Dee have very different ideas about what "heritage" is. For Mama, the heritages are naturally infused from the past family to the present family who are using them. For Maggie, the quilts are valuable to her because of the memories of specific people in family, not because of some abstract notion of heritage. On the other hand, Dee rejects the active family objects surrounding her since she learned a larger history of African Nationalism at college. Walker's "Everyday Use" focuses on the bonds between women, Mama, Dee, and Maggie, of different generations,
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Gillespie provides more information: “Some scholars have posited that enslaved African Americans used quilts as texts, encoding in their various patterns messages, histories, and even maps of potential escape routes that they did not want their masters to be able to read or to understand” (Gillespie). With this information, Gillespie emphasizes that the quilt is actively involved in African-American culture as a hobby or as a form of art. This is well supported why the Mama and her two daughters have conflict about considering quilts between a living object for everyday use and an art craft for …show more content…
Dee is proud of herself and attractive, whereas Maggie is homely and withdrawn. Dee is self-centered, has not much conversation with her sister Maggie, so she has no idea how Maggie has a strong sense of family background. Maggie is willing to give up the quilts to her demanding older sister. Perhaps Maggie’s willingness is a submissive expectation of being down while Dee is above her. However, Maggie is not totally submissive and timid since her anger is shown when Dee asks for the quilts.
In "Personal Names and Heritage,” Helga Hoel objects Maggie’s meek and mild characteristic: “Dee seems to be the villain and Maggie the hero. The ugly uneducated sister wins the love and affection of the mother at the end” (Hoel). This argument approaches interestingly that not all readers have the same interpretation about Maggie’s characteristics in the story. Depending on readers, Maggie can be a hero or an ugly sister having a guilty
Gillespie provides more information: “Some scholars have posited that enslaved African Americans used quilts as texts, encoding in their various patterns messages, histories, and even maps of potential escape routes that they did not want their masters to be able to read or to understand” (Gillespie). With this information, Gillespie emphasizes that the quilt is actively involved in African-American culture as a hobby or as a form of art. This is well supported why the Mama and her two daughters have conflict about considering quilts between a living object for everyday use and an art craft for …show more content…
Dee is proud of herself and attractive, whereas Maggie is homely and withdrawn. Dee is self-centered, has not much conversation with her sister Maggie, so she has no idea how Maggie has a strong sense of family background. Maggie is willing to give up the quilts to her demanding older sister. Perhaps Maggie’s willingness is a submissive expectation of being down while Dee is above her. However, Maggie is not totally submissive and timid since her anger is shown when Dee asks for the quilts.
In "Personal Names and Heritage,” Helga Hoel objects Maggie’s meek and mild characteristic: “Dee seems to be the villain and Maggie the hero. The ugly uneducated sister wins the love and affection of the mother at the end” (Hoel). This argument approaches interestingly that not all readers have the same interpretation about Maggie’s characteristics in the story. Depending on readers, Maggie can be a hero or an ugly sister having a guilty