Heritage in Everyday Use

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individuals” (Ross 3). For Dee, her name is a burden, a reminder of the life her ancestors had to live but that she will not. This is brought to our attention when she replies to her mother’s reaction about her name change with, “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me” (Walker 611). To Mama, the name means unity of a family. To Dee, the name represents being handcuffed to a past with people she did not associate herself with.
The quilts are functional scrapbooks for the Johnson family. The have “pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear” (Walker 612). There is also a “scrap of a Civil War uniform worn by Great Grandpa Ezra” (Ross 4). Dee wants to take the quilts and put them on display, using them as a “negative index to her own sophistication” and success (Cowart 4). They are, however, designated to Maggie by Aunt Dicie, Mama’s sister. Dee is not happy about Mama’s decision to let Maggie keep them, exclaiming that she will probably “be backward ...

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