Heritage In Dee And Dee's Everyday Use

Heritage is an object which has been handed down from generation to generation. However, it’s not only one item, but also does carry people’s emotion and memory, like a letter, dress or wedding ring. The heritage is important because people can trace back to family’s history and memorize the past by it. In the story of “Everyday Use”, Dee and Maggie both think the heritage is significant, but from different aspects. For example, Dee wants to show off the heritage and emphasize her African root. However, to Maggie, heritage is more like a representation of who she is and her past with family. “Everyday Use” is a story that happened in 1960s to 1970s, in which there were numerous movements about black people’s struggle for civil rights. The story begins with Mama and Maggie waiting for Dee’s arrival, but Dee’s showing up shocks Mama since she’s changed her name to Wangero. Then Dee showed her obsession with old stuff, like churn top, bench and quilts. Nevertheless, when she asked for the quilts, Mama took them …show more content…
In other words, Maggie’s life is simplified, and family means everything to her. Besides, it was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself. So, all of these factors above accumulate Maggie’s strong feeling for the quilt. In addition, Maggie said that “I can ’member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (460). Firstly, indeed, the grandmother has been already in Maggie’s heart. Secondly, it is an ironic way to say that Dee will not remember the grandmother without the quilt, which means the family is not in Dee’s heart really. Dee just realizes the importance of those old stuff to show her African root after she attends to