Everyday Use Essay #1

Ashley Booth
Instructor Holden
English 102
8 June 2007
The “Everyday Use” of Heritage

According to Dictionary.com, heritage is “something that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; an inherited lot or portion.” Heritage is the theme in Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use.” In this story, a woman (the narrator) and her daughter, Maggie, wait for Maggie’s sister, Dee, to arrive at their house. It has been many years since either of them have seen Dee, and the narrator dreams of what she wishes this meeting would be like. However, when Dee arrives with a new husband and a new name – Wangero - the narrator feels as though nothing has really changed. Dee is the same condescending, selfish girl that she used to be. When Dee tries to take some quilts the narrator has promised to Maggie, the narrator doesn’t let her. Dee argues that the quilts are valuable, full of heritage, and using the quilts for everyday purposes would be disgraceful, destroying their worth.

When she was young, Dee was ashamed of her family and the way they lived. When the narrator reminisces about their first home catching fire, she remembers Dee standing and watching the house burn as Maggie, severely burnt and permanently scarred, was carried from the house. Other evidence of Dee’s shame is seen by her reluctance to bring friends to the house and her refusal to take a quilt with her to college when she moves out because they’re “old-fashioned, out of style” (Walker 103).

However, when Dee returns to visit her mother and Maggie, she seems to think that everything she hated while growing up is quaint and full of value because of its history. She laughs and flits about, taking pictures of her mother and sister, their house, and the cow that comes into the yard to investigate all the noise. She appears disdainfully astounded at the rump-prints in the bench at the dining table, the milk congealing in the butter churn. When she finds some quilts at the foot of the bed, she moves to take them home with her to use as decoration, but the narrator (her mother) refuses to let her. At this, Dee exclaims that “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts.... She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use” (Walker 103). She believes that her heritage is better preserved by using it artistically, as something pretty to look at like a centerpiece on a table or a wall hanging.

While the dialogue and characterization in “Everyday Use” most blatantly illustrate the story’s theme of heritage, there are several other ways in which Alice Walker makes the theme evident. One such way is through the setting. The juxtaposition of the life the narrator and Maggie lead and the life Dee appears to lead paint a picture of what heritage truly is. Maggie and the narrator live in a small house in the middle of pasture with a dirt front yard and holes cut in the walls to serve as windows. However, when Dee appears, she is the picture of elegance and sophistication: her dress is different than any they’ve ever seen, her hair is done, she arrives in a car with a strange man, and she casually refers to her apartment in the city filled with more furniture than Maggie and her mother have had in their entire lives. It almost appears as if Dee is from a different world, and it seems impossible to think that they all once lived together as a poor family in a plain house with homemade furniture and clothes.

Another way in which the author uses heritage as the theme is seen through the story’s point of view. This story is in first person, from the narrator’s point of view. The narrator, Dee and Maggie’s mother, begins the story thinking about what it would be like to see Dee again. The strange thing about this is that she doesn’t see Dee changed in her mind, she sees herself changed: thinner, lighter, funnier. Shame at her own appearance and intellect and what Dee wishes she were like are what pop into the narrator’s mind in her vision of meeting her daughter under other circumstances. This daydream illustrates the differences between how Dee and her mother think. Throughout the story we read of what the narrator is thinking, how she views what is happening, but through the current and past actions of other characters, it becomes a little clearer what the others are thinking. Dee’s actions toward her mother and sister, especially concerning the quilts, give a glimpse as to how she views heritage. She appears to think of heritage as something you learn about in books or hear about in college, something that is impressed upon you by other people. Dee’s constant reading aloud and “forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon [them]” (Walker 100) and renaming herself Wangero because she doesn’t want to be named after “those who oppress her” (Walker 101) are evidence of this. The narrator and Maggie, however, seem to view heritage (though not by that name) as the life that they live. After Dee and Hakim-a-Barber (her new husband) leave, Maggie and her mother seem utterly unconcerned with Dee’s outburst about preserving their heritage and not wasting “priceless” treasures on everyday things. They “[sit] there just enjoying [the evening], until it [is] time to go in the house and go to bed” (Walker 104).

While Maggie, Dee, and their mother all have the same heritage, Dee never really appreciates its true meaning and worth. To me, my heritage isn’t what I choose to make it or just the bits and pieces that look best to the rest of the world. My heritage is everything about the way I’ve been raised, my family, my ancestors, and the culture I live in. Essentially, I believe that’s what Alice Walker was trying to say through “Everyday Use”: everyone should appreciate their heritage, even the less spectacular and acceptable parts, because all of it helps to make us who we are.


Works Cited

"heritage." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 08 Jun. 2007. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/heritage>.

Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 8th ed. Roberts, Edgar and Henry Jacobs. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. 99-104.

Comment:
If I could do this piece over again, I would write about a different short story. I wrote about "Everyday Use" because I had read it several times before and understood it pretty well. Also, since I haven't taken a class from Ms. Holder before, I didn't really know what her grading criteria was for essays. If I wrote this piece over again, I would know not to use things outside the realm of the story or my own personal experiences.