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Alice Walker’s Everyday Use: Family Characters - Term Papers

Alice Walker’s Everyday Use: Family Characters

The family characters in Alice Walker’s " Everyday Use " illustrates the mistake by some people of placing the significance of heritage solely in material objects. Mama and Maggie, are presented as how heritage is passed on from one generation to another through learning and experience. Dee, represents a misconception of heritage as material. During her visit, Dee misplaces the value of heritage in her desire for racial heritage.
Mama and Maggie represent the connection between generation and heritage that passed between them. They live in a home that is run down and out of touch compared to present day time. Mama is a big woman who takes care of the home and land, " I am a large, ...

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without understanding the heritage itself. Unlike Mama who is rough and man-like, and Maggie who is shy and scared, Dee is confident, " determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts" (73) she is beautiful and dresses eloquently. Also she has a higher education having being sent " to school in Augusta " (73). She attempts to connect with her heritage by taking pictures of the house with the family in the picture. She also takes some of the handmade items of her mother’s such as the churn top which she will use " as a centerpiece for the alcove table " (76). She associates these things with heritage now, but thought nothing of them while growing up. Dee’s desire for heritage is material, wishing to have these various items in order to display them for her home and so-called friends. Dee wants to have these things because she perceives each to have value as she does with the quilts.
The desire of the quilts by Dee goes against the belief of the quilts that Mama has. Dee ...

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Alice Walker’s Everyday Use: Family Characters. (2004, April 1). Retrieved January 13, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Alice-Walkers-Everyday-Use-Family-Characters/5553

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 4/1/2004 09:39:07 PM
Category: Book Reports
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 564
Pages: 3

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