A Family Quilted

Each person’s heritage is important. It tells us where we come from, what our roots are, and why we are the way we are today. Some of us are more aware of our ancestry than are others and there are several ways to appreciate it. In “Everyday Use”, by Alice Walker, there is a distinction between these ways. One is an intellectual appreciation and the other is actually living it. Mama and Maggie are existing in an unchanged rural life while Dee can only grasp the cerebral side.

Mama does not even realize that she is what her heritage has told her to become. There has been no real change from the past for her; she just lives what she was told to live by her predecessors. Mama doesn’t know enough to advance herself, admitting that she “never had an education . . . After second grade the school was closed down” (45). Even if she had gotten a proper education, she still is choosing to do what she is best at doing: “I was always better at a man’s job” (45). Although Mama is not aware of it, she is a living artifact of her heritage.

Maggie is not aware of much in her life. Even Mama knows that Maggie doesn’t have the best abilities: “She stumbles along good-naturedly but can’t see well. She knows she is not bright. Lik

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Mama sees them as something to give to Maggie so that she can remember Grandma Dee, but not as a symbol of her heritage.

Heritage should not be appreciated in just one way, exclusive to the other. A person should recognize the significance of historical artifacts but also keep a piece of it with them in their daily lives, but not to the extreme of Mama and Maggie’s living. As soon as Dee/Wangero has departed, Mama and Maggie are back to being what they were before the visit. Mama’s refusal to allow her to take them demonstrates at last that she thinks of Maggie a bit more than as just “a lame animal” and more as a daughter.

When it comes to the quilts, Dee/Wangero is even more determined. Maggie probably could not have an intellectual appreciation of her heritage even if she desired one because of her lack of brightness. Dee/Wangero intends to exhibit the quilts and knows that Maggie will use them, making her desire to preserve them that much greater.

Dee shows herself as being fickle in her beliefs. She takes Maggie’s side for once and rejects Dee/Wangero’s request for the quilts. e good looks and money, quickness passed her by” (45). ‘I can ‘member Grandma Dee without the quilts’” (49). Dee went to college and learned all the things that modern society told her to learn, which in all probability included black history.

Approximate Word count = 1356
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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