piece of a Civil War uniform. She wants to hang them on a wall as artifacts. Mama has promised these quilts to Maggie foreveryday use. When Mama decides to give the quilts to Maggie, she realizes the worth of her daughter Maggie, and the foolishness of "Miss Wangero."

One important subject that Alice Walker addresses in her short story is humans' varied perspectives of heritage.  While it is common to feel sympathy for Mama and Maggie in "Everyday Use" because Dee seems so condescending toward them, Walker doesn't necessarily expect readers to view Mama and Maggie's perspective of heritage as the sole right one.  Even though Dee is not as sympathetic a character as the other two women in her family, she is still an admirable figure.  She is ambitious and has taken the initiative to see what opportunities exist for her in the world, and she simply has a different view of her heritage and how to show appreciation for it than Mama and Maggie do (i.e., the quilts).

The main theme in the story concerns personal values and identity. Maggie and Dee grew up as sisters in the same home, but they could not be more different. To Dee, home was a place from which to escape as soon as possible on the way to a "better" life. She hungered for education and material wealth. She had no meaningful relationship with her mother and sister and felt no interest in or connection to her grandparents and great grandparents. Dee chose to identify with her African ancestors while rejecting her family. She is portrayed as self-centered, insensitive, and abrasive. Maggie, in contrast, shared a loving bond with her mother and embraced her family history. Though far less educated and in no way stylish like her sister, Maggie and her values are far more appealing than Dee's.

The major theme develops through the disposition of a family quilt promised to Maggie when she married. Dee cares nothing about the history of the quilt or her grandmother who sewed it, the woman for whom she was named. To Dee, it represents a "priceless" piece of art to hang on the wall. Maggie, however, values the quilt because it was made by her grandmother whom she remembers with love.

In giving the quilt to Maggie, their mother makes the major theme of the story quite clear. Dee's values are condemned. In rejecting her personal heritage in favor of a different identity, Dee had lost an important part of her life that she was too foolish to even miss.

The question of identity as it pertains to African-American women in the 1960s and 1970s (as  well as now) is an important theme in the short story. The quilts represent generations of Johnson women, a series of mother-daughter relationships that have constructed identities through various conditions. The quilts are art as well, art crafted by women from one generation to the next, signifying that art is grounded in a community of women through relationships, and by passing on this art, they also pass on a shared identity of their unique African (and American) culture.  Dee's name change shows her wanting to go back behind this immediate history and identity to an imagined one which is imagined rather than real, one that ignores all that quilting represents in this family. In trying to get to her "roots" as an African-American woman, to claim an identity that is "African," she not only denigrates the relationships of women that construct who she is but also "buys into" a false identity (according to the author) manufactured as a fad rather than based on lived lives.

Family heritage and materialism are intertwined themes in this story. Dee wants things from her childhood home for their monetary value and for the status of owning valuable "objects".

Maggie loves and wants them because they represent generations of family and history, not for how much they are worth in dollars.

Alice Walker's "Everday Use" is designed around the theme of appreciating the past & one's family. This can be a difficult task, at times, because our past & family is so familiar to us (like everyday objects) that we often take it/them for granted.

Walker skillfully proves her point through the two sisters, Dee and Maggie (through the eyes of their mother). Dee wants a contemporary identity, but one tied to her African heritage, which she believes to be more important. Scornfully, she tells her mother not to call her Dee anymore:

"What happened to 'Dee'?" I wanted to know. "She's dead," Wangero (Dee) said. "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me."

Wangero (Dee) thinks she has been named after a white woman. Her mother assures her she was named after her grandmother, but Dee argues that the line goes back to whites.

Maggie, on the other hand, embraces her past, adoring the handmade quilts her grandmother made. Here is revealed the primary difference between the sisters: Dee wants the quilts because they are "art objects" and argues that Maggie "would be backward enough to put them to everyday use."

Everyday use, in the narrator's opinion, is the way to value the past, to keep it alive. It is not keeping it in a museum, or seperating yourself from your family.

Whenever it comes to identifying themes within short stories you are going to get a large response involving different ideas and aspects of the story. I guess you could say that this is what makes a good piece of fiction - one that can be interpreted in so many ways. For me, however, the theme of this story has to do with our heritage and our family history and how we respond to it. We can see this theme through the main symbol of the story and how it is used.

Clearly the major symbol of this great story is to be found in the quilts that Dee so desperately wants. Consider how they are presented in the story:

Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieces by Grandma Dee, and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Star pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War.

This description shows both how valuable they are to the narrator but also what a family history they include and show. It is clear that the quilts and who they belong to symbolise a far bigger issue regarding the characters of Dee and Maggie, giving the story its title. Note what Dee says when her mother declares she had promised them to Maggie:

"Maggie can't appreciate those quilts!" she said. She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use."

The final decision to give Maggie the quilts is an act of love and of upbuilding of Maggie, for the narrator rejects Dee's rather pushy claim on the quilts and gives them to Maggie instead. Thus the quilts can be said to symbolise the heritage of the family, but also the love and human spirit of Ma for Maggie as she tries to build her daughter up and show her that she is affirmed and deeply cared for. Of course, it is Maggie who, unlike her sister, Dee, has not abandoned her family heritage, and thus will use the quilts in a way that is honouring to the memory of the family history that they represent.

The theme is clear: it is vital to not forget, reject or turn our back on our family background in the way that Dee has done. For when we do that, we endanger forgetting who we are as individuals.

The primary theme of everyday use is the detachment of tradition and family values versus the attachment to material and social preoccupation.

In synthesis, the story reveals a mother whose oldest daughter returns to their humble home after spending a good amount of time becoming educated. The daughter had changed her name, looks, and lifestyle and had created an afro-centric persona merely for the sake of fashion and societal acceptance. As part of the "knickknacks" she wants to grab for herself and her mini-Afrocentric-museum of a home, she wants a very old family quilt who had been sewn together with items that were important to the family.  The mother had already promised that quilt to her other daughter, who conserved the family values and commitment to tradition that the older sister lacked.  In the end, the quilt ended up with her since the mother realized that her elder daughter was a fake basically and the bride-to-be was ten times more worthy of the sacrifices of the family than the other one was.

The story explores the rejection of one's heritage in favor of another. The chief character in this narrative, Dee Johnson, rejects all the Southern African American values, customs, and traditions she has been raised with and adopts those that she believes better reflect her origins. Her actions, though, appear pretentious and shallow.    

Even before leaving home to pursue further education, Dee presents an intense dislike for her living conditions. She is, for example, happy that her original home has burnt down. When she returns home, supposedly to visit and get reconnected to her roots, her real purpose is exposed. She is only there to collect samples of her heritage as items for display. She does not know much about her history, and when her sister, Maggie, recounts some of it, she says that Maggie remembers like an elephant.   

Dee has disrespectfully abandoned her name and adopted an Africanised one. Her new name is Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. It is quite ironic that she has taken on a name with no history behind it at all, while she rejects a name that has been in her family for generations. She rejects her original name supposedly because she is named after her oppressors. Her statement lacks depth and insight and displays further irony because the implication of what she says is that her own family persecuted her. She has, however, been treated and raised with love and care. Her mother and the church (which means the community) even raised enough money for her to attend school in Augusta.

Dee's partner is also from a different culture. He is obviously Muslim since Mama refers to him (somewhat mockingly) as Asalamalakim (an Arabic greeting) and Hakim-a-barber (an Islamic name that she clearly cannot pronounce).  

Dee's materialism and superficiality are exposed when she lays claim to Grandma Dee's butter dish, not because she wants to use it, but because she wants to put it on display. When she later demands two quilts that were created by her two namesakes, Grandma Dee, Big Dee (her aunt), and her mother, Mama rejects her request and states that they are wedding gifts for Maggie. Mama takes the quilts from her and gives them to Maggie.  

Dee, who appears to have always gotten what she wanted, is upset and decides to leave. Her parting words to Maggie most apparently indicate her rejection of an age-old heritage and the adoption of a new way of life. She tells Maggie:  

You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new day for us. But the way you and mama still live you'd never know it.

In Dee's eyes, Mama and Maggie's lifestyle is out of date and out of style. She believes that she is progressive by adopting a new name and customs while they are backward.

The overall theme is family heritage and the connection, or disconnection, between a life lived to impress peers and a life lived to continue and respect the family lineage. Dee contrasts with Maggie and Mrs. Johnson, showing her disdain for old traditions except where she can use them to make herself look more caring and intelligent. Mrs. Johnson sometimes dreams of living a more modern, socially acceptable lifestyle, but knows that she does a good job keeping her family alive and bringing useful skills into the modern age.

Dee has no respect for old traditions, preferring to live in what she sees as a socially-acceptable, modern lifestyle. She even rejects her given name:

"I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me."

"You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie," I said.(Walker, "Everyday Use," xroads.virginia.edu)

She has no real sense of the heritage behind her name, or the "old-fashioned" things that she covets. She wants the quilts not because she likes them, but because she can point out their history and impress other people. In this way, she contrasts her self-absorbed, selfish outlook with Mrs. Johnson's straightforward, simple outlook.