Everyday Use
In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” Dee is searching for cultural authenticity but in her search, she latches on to material possessions the relics of her family heritage, thinking these represent the identity she is after. However, Dee’s search is frustrated by her own superficial understanding of what culture really and truly is: she believes it is a construct that can be concocted over night—or re-claimed by way of artifice. The reality is that, as the mother shows, culture comes from the heart and its attachment to one’s true heritage—which is why Maggie is awarded the quilt coveted by Dee. Maggie has the heart to love it because it comes from her family, and she has the sense to make use of it; Dee wants it only because she thinks it represents her ancestral blackness—beyond that it means nothing to her. Mother’s role in awarding the quilt to the most deserving daughter reinforces the main idea of the story, which is that real culture is lived, whereas fake or superficial culture is merely talked about. Maggie has the real culture of the family: she is fond of her heritage; Dee is simply posing, attempting to create a hyper-heritage that extends beyond her immediate family history and goes all the way back to a continent she doesn’t even really know.
Walker confirms Dee as a poser when she points out that Dee’s given name comes from a long line of women in the family: she is named after her aunt, who was named for their grandmother and so on—yet for Dee, who has...
Works Cited
Baker, Houston A., and Charlotte Pierce-Baker. “Patches: Quilts and Community in Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use’.” The Southern Review, vol. 21, no. 3 (1985): 706.
Hoel, Helga. “Personal Names and Heritage: Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use’.” American Studies in Scandinavia, vol. 31, no. 1 (1999), 34-42.
Tuten, Nancy. “Alice Walker’s ‘Everyday Use.’” The Explicator, vol. 51, no. 2 (1993), 125-128.
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” http://www.nlsd.k12.oh.us/userfiles/111/Classes/3450/Walker-Everday%20Use.pdf
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