Everyday Use Free Essays

â€Å"Dee Files†: Is She Honest or Is She a Hypocrite? In the story, â€Å"Everyday Use,† by Alice Walker, Dee is portrayed as a hypocrite towards her heritage by not understanding what her true heritage is. The author shows that Dee does not really have any interests in her family heritage and has little understanding of the important aspects of her family history. She fails to realize that her mind is completely blocked from her true heritage and fills it with completely new beliefs. We will write a custom essay sample on Everyday Use or any similar topic only for you Order Now In â€Å"Everyday Use† by Alice Walker, the author shows that heritage is valued objects and qualities that are passed down from generation to generation, and it represents the family’s importance, and because Dee does not understand this true meaning of heritage, her interest in her heritage is very hypocritical and splits her relationship with her family apart. Dee changes her heritage to fit her own beliefs rather than, keeping her actual heritage and learning about her own family history. It is first seen that she changes her heritage, when Dee changes her name to â€Å"Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo† because she â€Å"couldn’t bear†¦ being named after the people who oppress [her]† (pg. 55). The author shows that Dee gets rid of the name passed down from generation to generation and throws away a piece of her heritage. Dee indicates that her ancestors and elders whom she was named after oppress her, because she refuses to accept the culture and heritage of her family. Another example of her changed heritage is when she gets out of the car, wearing â€Å"a dress down to the ground†¦ A dress so loud, it hurts [Mama’s] eyes. † After being away to college, the author portrays Dee with a completely different style of clothing, not leaving one piece of traditional clothing, which gives a sign of Dee fading away from her heritage. Here, the author allows the reader to see that Dee does not understand her heritage and that her new appearance does not accurately represent her heritage. Even though Dee changes her heritage, she still thinks that she is still in touch with her family history and culture. We see that Dee is unaware that she forgets about her original heritage when she demands to have grandma’s quilts to â€Å"hang them† (59) instead of putting them to â€Å"everyday use† (58), the way she assumes Maggie would do. The author explains that Maggie would build upon the history of the quilts, honoring her heritage rather than Dee who would only hang them to prove that she is in touch with her culture. The author reveals that Dee only wants to show them off and she disrespects the heritage of the quilts by not wanting to put them to â€Å"everyday use. † Also, even after Mama gives the quilts to Maggie, she still thinks that it is Mama and Maggie who â€Å"don’t understand their heritage† (59). The author gives this passage a sense of irony because Dee claims that Mama and Maggie do not understand their heritage, but it is she, who does not accept her family heritage and throws it away to look for her true meaning. Dee’s arrogance and ignorance causes her to even scold her mother on their heritage, which is really what should have been done to her. Dee had no interests in her real family heritage and only has a fondness towards her made up heritage which does not mean anything or say anything about her real history or her true culture. She does not understand that she pushes her traditions and heritage away, even when her relatives and mother try to teach her about it. Her ignorance makes her view of heritage hypocritical, because she never accepts her heritage, but still defends it as if she has the correct view of her heritage. How to cite Everyday Use, Essay examples Everyday Use Free Essays Everyday Use Symbolism The Quilts These quilts represent Mama’s family and her heritage, they were made by Grandma Dee and Big Dee. Symbolically, each piece of material was made from scraps of clothing that once belonged to someone in their family, including pieces of their great-grandfather’s Civil War uniform. . We will write a custom essay sample on Everyday Use or any similar topic only for you Order Now To Maggie, they represent her family; she still remembers with love her grandmother who made one of them and she says it is okay if Dee takes them because she does not need the quilts to remember Grandma Dee. To Dee, however, the quilts have no emotional value. She regards them as a type of folk art that will look impressive hanging upon her walls. (Dee embraces her African heritage while rejecting her personal family history. ) Mama gives those quilts to Maggie because she knows Maggie, unlike Dee, will honor the culture and heritage by using it, or continuing it the way it was originally intended. ‘Maggie can’s appreciate these quilts! she said. ‘She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use. ‘ The Butter Churn and the Dasher The author also uses the butter churn and the dasher as a symbol to show mama’s understands of heritage. When Mama takes the dasher handle in her hands, she is symbolically touching the hands of all those who used it before her. Her appreciation for the dasher and the quits is based on the love fort the people who made use of them. Dee wants to use the churn top as a centerpiece for the alcove table and do something creative with the dasher. Mama views and honors her heritage as practical by appreciating what she acquired from previous generations and putting the passed down items into everyday use. Dee views and honors her heritage as superficial by appreciating the passed down items for their materialistic and artistic value How to cite Everyday Use, Essay examples Everyday Use Free Essays A Contrast between Dee and Maggie’s View Concerning Their Heritage In my writing essay I shall analyze the way in which heritage can be conceived in Alice Walker’s novel Everyday Use, trying to point out the author’s main ideas concerning the theme of the story. I would also try to describe the two daughter’s points of view, Dee and Maggie’s, about their ancestral heritage. The contrast between these two daughters is more than obvious not only in their appearance but also in their behavior when it comes to quilts from their grandmother. We will write a custom essay sample on Everyday Use or any similar topic only for you Order Now Everyday Use is a story narrated by a rural black woman, who is the mother of the two girls Maggie and Dee Johnson. Mrs. Johnson, is a simple woman but who, in spite of all difficulties that she passed through, she tried to give her daughters if possible, a good education and of course the most important thing, to make them aware of what heritage is indeed, the fact that traditional culture and heritage is not represented only by the possession of old objects, but also by one’s behavior and customs. She outlines in the story that she is not a very educated woman, but this does not mean that the lack of education is also reflected in her capacity to understand, to love and to respect her ancestors. Since the beginning of the story, the narrator makes obvious the contrast between Maggie and her elder sister Dee. Dee is a very ambitious girl, with a well-defined character, the one who had always been successful and ambitious. Maggie thinks â€Å"her sister has held life, always in the palm of one hand, that â€Å"no† is a word the world never learned to say to her. (Walker 2469). Dee denies her real heritage by changing her given name, after her aunt Dee, to the superficially more impressive one Wangero Leewanik Kemanjo, arguing to her mother that â€Å"Dee is dead and I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me† ( Walker 2472), what she does in fact is to reject her family identity. She inspires in her mother â€Å"a sort of aw e and fear more suitable to the advent of a goddess than the love one might expect a mother to feel for a returning daughter† (Farell, â€Å"Flight†). On the other hand, Maggie is the type of simple girl, like her mother, with little education. She is not ambitious like her sister Dee, living somehow in her mother’s shadow. But this might be also because Maggie hadn’t her sister luck and she burned severely in the house fire when she was a child, becoming now a shy and fearful person. These features are more visible in her attitude while waiting for her sister to come home. Mama is projecting her own anger and frustration onto her younger daughter when she speculates that Maggie will be cowed by Dee’s arrival. Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe† ( Walker 2469). As Marianne Hirsch says in one of her critical essays: â€Å"the mother sees in Maggie’s angerless, fear an image of her own passive acceptance of Dee’s aggression, her ow n suppressed anger† Moreover, we can see through the lines of this story that, at the beginning, Dee was the daughter that mother preferred most because of her authority and because she wanted to succeed in life by following her instincts. But when she saw her totally changed, not only physically but also in her mentality, mother realized that Maggie was the one that understood the meaning of â€Å"heritage† and tried to give her justice. It is relevant â€Å"Mama’s awakening to one’s daughter’s superficiality and to the other’s deep-seated understanding of heritage† ( Tuten, â€Å"Alice Walker’s Everyday Use† ). However, Dee seems to despise her sister, her mother and the church that helped to educate her. Intentionally or not, she is selfish and she treats her sister with indifference. While Dee escaped from the poor life she was supposed to live, Maggie, next to her mother, represents the multitude of black women who must suffer. Scarred, graceless, not bright and uneducated, â€Å"Maggie is a living reproach to a survivor like her sister† (Cowart, â€Å"Heritage†) . The contradictions about heritage and culture between Maggie and Dee become more extensive when the quilts take part from the story. After dinner, Dee discovers some old quilts which belonged to her grandmother. She is very excited that found them, thinking that these quilts represent the testament of her ancestors. Without taking into account Maggie’s opinion, she asks her mother if she can have those quilts, arguing that she is the only one who can appreciate and have the right to keep them. At first, mother hesitates to give her an answer and offers her other quilts but Dee gets upset and then mother explains to her that the quilts were from Maggie as a wedding gift. Maggie’s tolerance in the story contrasts with Dee’s boldness. When Dee insists that her sister would ruin grandma’s quilts by using them everyday, and that hanging the quilts would be the only way to preserve them, Maggie â€Å" like somebody used to never wining anything, or having anything reserved for her† says â€Å" She can have them, Mama. I can remember Grandma Dee without the quilts† (Walker, 2474). Mrs. Johnson then realizes what makes Maggie different form her sister. She sees her scarred hands hidden in her skirt and says: â€Å"When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I’m in the church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout† (Walker, 2475). This powerful feelings determines Mama to do something she had never done before: â€Å"she snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero’s hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap† ( Walker, 2475). Mama’s behavior here is almost like Dee’s because she rebuffs her wishes for the first time and give justice to the most patient Maggie. The fact that she takes the quilts from Dee and gives them to Maggie, â€Å"she confirms her younger daughter’s self-worth: metaphorically, she gives Maggie her voice† ( Tuten, â€Å"Alice Walker’s Everyday Use† ). In conclusion, I can say that Everyday Use is a story about understanding heritage. This concept is very well exposed by the two characters Alice Walker created, Dee and Maggie. These two daughters have a completely different view in what concerns the heritage from their ancestors; in this case their origins and their inheritance, the quilts from Grandma Dee. Maggie is the one who understands that heritage is about respecting family’s traditions and customs while Dee destroys the traditional image kept by Mrs. Johnson and her sister. She denies her true origins by changing the given name into more fashionable one, Wangero Leewanik Kemanjo. One should appreciate his legacy because it represents indeed what we are. We can not hide our roots and even if we want, this would not be possible because it always remains present in our souls and our minds, we like it or not. WORKES CITED PRIMARY SOURCE: Walker, Alice. Everyday Use. In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973. SECONDARY SOURCE: Cowart, David . †Heritage and deracination in Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use. † Studies in Short Fiction. FindArticles. com. Farrell Susan. â€Å"Fight vs. Flight: a re-evaluation of Dee in Alice Walker’s â€Å"Everyday Use†- Critical Essay†. Studies in Short Fiction. FindArticles. com. Hirsch, Marianne. â€Å"Clytemnestra’s Children: Writing the Mother’s Anger. † Alice Walker: Modern Critical Views. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1989. Tuten, Nancy. â€Å"Alice Walker’s Everyday Use. † The Explicator 51. 2,1993 How to cite Everyday Use, Papers