Essay: Heritage seen in Alice Walker’s Everyday Use

Heritage gives the sense of value and tradition to many families around the world, however, it is also not value or forgotten in the lives of many people. In Everyday Use by Alice Walker, the theme is not only about the significance of heritage in the lives of people, but also the way it is valued, and understood by people. At first the conflict seems to be just about their family quarrels, however, as the story progresses, the conflict becomes more clear and the main conflict starts to show. In Alice Walker’s Everyday Use, the main conflict between Mama, Maggie, and Dee comes from their own values and understanding of their heritage and culture. Walker uses many details throughout the story to represent their heritage, how they valued it and what it means to each of them.
Walker uses Maggie, Mama, and Dee to portray the two different perspectives on heritage and culture. Dee, though she says that she cares about her heritage, has a very different view from her mom and her sister. Growing up, Dee “has held life always in the palm of one hand, that “no” is a word the world never learned to say to her”, also Dee had an education, unlike her mom and Maggie. Growing up with these things, Dee has always had the sense of freedom and independence, though living in the same house, was different from Maggies. Maggie, on the other hand, didn’t have much independence unlike her sister and also didn’t get an education like her. Growing up like that made her shy towards her sister and also living with her mom all the time strengthened her perspective on her heritage.
Although Dee says that she cares about her family and heritage, she rejects and disregards her family and her name, which has been passed down from her generation. When asked about why she changed her name she said that she did it because that was the name given to her by their oppressors, however, Mama said that it was not and that it was actually from her aunt who got it from her grandma. Walker also uses the quilt and their home as an object to show the two perspectives on heritage. It said in the story that Dee “had hated the house that much” to the point where she just stood and watched as the house burned down, however, Maggie didn’t feel that way for the house. Also when they were arguing over the quilt, Dee said that Maggie “can’t appreciate these quilts!” And that “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” This shows that Dee looks down on her sister and views that her perspective on the value of the quilt is better. When she was taking a picture with her family, she wanted the house, even though she didn’t care for it, to be in it, and she wanted the quilts so that she can hang them ups. Maggie, on the other hand, values her family and wants the quilt to remember her grandma by. Though they both believe and care about their heritage, Maggie’s perspective in more on the ancestral, family heritage and the history behind the things where-else Dee’s value is on the aesthetic part of her heritage and not the history and traditions that comes with it.
When addressing the themes of heritage, we can conclude that everyone has their own beliefs and values on their heritage, sometimes being influenced by the things around them like people, and their environment. In Everyday Use, Mama and Maggie have a different perspective on heritage than Dee. However, though people have different on heritage and other things, the important thing is that they at least value their heritage and that people try to see from other’s perspective and try to understand why they think like that.