Alice Walker Everyday Use Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Alice Walker Everyday Use - Essay ExampleHowever, a deeper reading makes it clear that becoming Wangero Leewanika Kimanjo is actually a rejection of her roots. The name Dee, which has passed down to her through the generations of her family, is more a part of her true heritage than the alien African name she has adopted (Hoel, Para. 17). Shes dead, she says of the old Dee (Walker, Para. 27). Dee had hated the house of her childhood (Walker, Para 10). Dee takes pictures of her mother and sister as if they were curiosities and includes the house and a cow, but not herself. She does not see herself as a part of their world. She takes the churner top and dasher, not as treasured parts of her past life, but as mere things or aestheticized objects (Whitsitt, 8), to be flaunted as artistic curios. Similarly, her desire for the quilts has nothing to do with traditions, only with fashion (Hoel, Para. 16). She desires them as fashion statements and as hand-stitched antiques of considerable mon etary value. Dees rejection of her family and her patronage for their way of life is a definite denial of her heritage.The modest, stay-at-home Maggie, when compared with the attractive, successful Dee, is not impressive. However, it is Maggie who, like her mother, has an inherent understanding of heritage based on her fare and respect for those who came before her (White, Para. 3). To Maggie, the articles of their household are not inanimate objects of idealized art, or curios, but are valued as treasured links which mean history and tradition, binding women and men to the past and the past to the present (Whitsitt, 2). Maggie knows that Aunt Dees first husband whittled the dash (Walker, Para.52). Although she shares Dees estimate of the quilts, But theyre priceless (Walker, Para. 68), their value to her is based on her love of the people who made them.