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Walker's Everyday Use - Online Essays

Walker's Everyday Use

In the story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, Walker presents Mama, Dee and Maggie, the younger daughter, who is ashamed of herself yet proud of her heritage. While Dee is ashamed of her heritage and proud of herself, Walker illustrates the mistake by some of placing the significance of heritage solely in material objects.
In the story, Maggie is "homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs," (693) While Dee seeks her heritage without understanding the heritage itself. The quilt is passed on from one generation to another and along with it, its meaning however, Dee, the older daughter, represents a misconception of heritage as material. The two sisters' values concerning ...

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without the quilts," (698). This implies that her connection with the quilts is personal and emotional rather than materialistic.
Dee has always been ashamed of her family; she told her mother that she would manage to come to see them but wouldn't bring her friends. Just by saying that you can tell right off that she was ashamed to bring her friends over to the house. She never valued anything; everything to her was old and worthless. Until she came to visit all of a sudden, she appreciated everything. She said, "I never knew how lovely these benches are" as if she really meant it. I think Dee needs a reality check she does deserve to have the quilt because she will never know it true meaning. Maggie will always treasure it because she uses hand-made items in her life. Experiences the life of her ancestors, and learns the history of both, exemplified by Maggie's knowledge of the hand- made items and the people who made them--a knowledge which Dee does not possess.

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Walker's Everyday Use. (2005, March 11). Retrieved April 30, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Walkers-Everyday-Use/23559

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 3/11/2005 04:16:35 PM
Category: Book Reports
Type: Free Paper
Words: 424
Pages: 2

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