Meaning Of Heritage In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

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Heritage: Maggie vs. Dee In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use”, Maggie and Dee are two sisters who grow up in the same home but somehow end up with completely different lives. Maggie stays with her mother and gets engaged to a local man, while Dee goes off to college and seemingly learns about her heritage. A major theme in the story is the meaning of heritage. Both sisters displayed knowledge of their heritage, but only one truly knows the meaning. While away at school, Dee constructed a new heritage for herself and disowned her real roots. She returns from college with a new identity, and a new man. Dee believes that her name was adopted from white-culture; this makes her want to change her name. She takes up the name Wangero, and introduces her self as such. Dee does this, knowing that her name comes from a long line of women in her family. Her mother says, “You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie. . . I probably could have carried it back beyond the Civil War through the branches.” (Walker 340). This is an example of how Dee renounces her roots. The narrator …show more content…
Maggie believes that her heritage comes right from where she grew up. Dee, on the other hand thinks that her mother and sister have no idea where they come from, when in reality Dee disowns where she truly comes from. In the case of Heritage: Maggie vs. Dee, the real winner is Maggie. She exemplifies the theme throughout the story, by sticking to her roots, and not wandering home in hopes of treasures and souvenirs like her sister. Although Dee does not seem as if she values her heritage, she heavily develops the meaning of heritage in the story. Dee loses because she changes herself, expecting to be closer to where she came from. In reality, she drifts as far off as possible. The meaning of heritage is extremely evident in this story through the narrator and especially Maggie and

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