Everyday Use by Alice Walker
Everyday Use by Alice Walker Literary Analysis
In her book, “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker explores the concept of family and heritage. Set in the late ’60s or early ’70s, “Everyday Use” features three main characters, Mama, Dee, and Maggie, to illustrate the theme of culture and heritage (Walker 2). In the book, Alice Walker presents two contrasting perceptions over what heritage, family history, and heritage mean. On its surface, Mama rejects Dee’s superficial values in favor of Maggie’s practical values. In this essay, a literary analysis of the differences between the views of Mama and Maggie against those of Dee in the context of heritage will be done.
As presented by Alice Walker, Dee and Mama have varying views and ideas about the meaning of heritage. As per Mama, family objects get infused with the presence of persons who designed and utilized them. For her, heirlooms of their family history are Dee’s true basis of origin and identity. In contrast, Dee has a limited understanding of her past. Although Dee pretends to be strongly associated with her old tradition, she openly misstates the useful facts about how the quilts were developed and questions the fabrics considered in making these quilts. For Dee, what her mother believes is foreign and considers them as impersonal objects (Walker 20). Nonetheless, Mama acknowledges that unlike Dee, Maggie needs to have the quilts, for Maggie will respect the quilts by using them appropriately.
In addition, as explored by Walker in “Everyday Use,” heritage and connection to the family’s day to day life remains vital. In Dee’s ideas and views, culture can be termed as dead past, whose relationship with the present is distances through anesthetization and nostalgia. In the book, Dee turns away aspects of their heritage, which are linked with her immediate past or parts of her culture, which are visible in the family’s current life….End of Preview….