The characters Dee is the opposite of her mother in being she embraces new opportunities the modern world has to offer. Walker uses Dee’s intellectual background to promote Dee’s new found heritage. In “Everyday Use” Dee constantly forces her new view of what tradition and heritage means or what she thinks it means. Throughout the story Dee is confined to her own sense of heritage so much so she changes her name to what she thinks matches her African roots stating, “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppressed her.” She takes practical things such as a quilt and makes it a symbol of great hardship that she wants to showcase explaining how her sister, Maggie, wouldn’t be able to appreciate the quilts and would “probably
