Discussion Topic
Symbolism and Heritage in "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker
Summary:
In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," quilts symbolize the divergent views of heritage between sisters Dee and Maggie. Dee, who has embraced a superficial connection to her African roots, sees the quilts as cultural artifacts to display, reflecting her desire for modernity and fashion. Conversely, Maggie values them for their practical use and sentimental ties to family history. The narrator, Mama, ultimately gives the quilts to Maggie, recognizing her genuine connection to their heritage and familial bonds. The quilts serve as a metaphor for the family's intertwined history and identity.
In "Everyday Use," why does Dee want the quilts?
Dee wants to hang the quilts in her home. According to her mother, Dee says this "as if that was the only thing you could do with quilts." Mrs. Johnson tells her that she's promised the quilts to Maggie. Dee condescendingly says that Maggie "can't appreciate" the quilts. Dee fears Maggie will use them every day. This is an absurd argument because the quilts were intended for "everyday use."
Dee puts value in the quilts themselves. She says they are "priceless." Given that she simply wants to hang them as priceless artifacts, she views the quilts as pieces of art, things to be shown in a fashionable way. Dee's new affinity for her African heritage is admirable but it is also motivated by her desire to be modern and fashionable. Dee does not recognize that the cultural meaning and spirit behind the quilts is that it connects the women of...
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the family. Themetaphor of the quilt is quite fitting because it is stitched together just as family is connected together. Dee would use the quilts superficially whereas Maggie would use them for their intended purpose. The warmth a quilt provides is indicative of the love put into the quilt by preceding generations. If Dee hangs the quilt on the wall, she is literally and symbolically distancing herself from this family heritage.
The struggle of African American women with racism and prejudice was the theme of many of Alice Walker’s writing. “Everyday Use” was published in a time when these problems were at their apex.
The characters in the story represent two distinct generations. Mrs. Johnson believes that family is the heart and soul of life. Her life has been given to her daughters in trying to provide for their needs. Her youngest daughter Dee does not understand or appreciate the sacrifices that her mother’s has undergone for her.
Mrs. Johnson is uneducated and naïve. This does not mean she is not intelligent. However, she waits on the lawn for a daughter who does not appreciate her mother or sister. Dee believes that she is above the family for which, in truth, she has been ashamed.
Dee has even changed her name to one that she believes makes her closer to her African heritage. Dee brags:
"She's dead," Wangero said. "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me."
With little protest, her mother seems to accept her persona and even her name. Dee gives her mother nothing but a superior attitude.
It has been so long since Dee has been home that her mother’s imagination runs wild hoping that Dee will be happy to be home. Dee has an ulterior motive for coming home. Not to be a part of the family again but to take things that she can show to others as actual antique, African artifacts.
Dee lays claim to a couple of quilts. Because she has always gotten her way, she does not dream that her shy sister Maggie will not allow her to take them. When her mother supports the older sister by telling Dee that she cannot have them, Dee is livid.
"Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use."
The quilts have no value to Dee except as wall hangings. On the other hand, Maggie plans to use the quilts as they were intended to be used: by actually living within the African and family heritage. The story disproves Dee’s superficial attitude that it is a new day for the African Americans
What do Maggie and Dee's attitudes toward heritage and the symbolism of quilts represent in "Everyday Use"?
Maggie and Dee hold very different attitudes toward "heritage" in the story "Everyday Use." For Dee, heritage is something to put on display, to show others who she is and to celebrate where she has come from in a historical sense. For Maggie, "heritage" is the family she knows and loves, the stories she has been told and remembers, the homemaking skills she has been taught, and the traditions she holds dear.
Dee, now "Wangero," has recently discovered her "heritage" and is trying to make an evident display of it by changing her name, her mannerisms, and her appearance, as well as by collecting old household items that represent that heritage. This is evident when she first appears on the scene, wearing:
A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun.... Earrings gold, too, and hanging down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises ...
Wangero also greets her family with an African greeting, further adding to her glorified "entrance". She has returned home with the goal of getting some of her mother's possessions to display in her new apartment - including the quilt that her mother has promised to her sister, which Dee had previously thought not good enough for her to take to college. She wants to display these items - various examples of African folk art - to help her "remember" her African heritage and where she comes from. To her, this is best shown in "things" rather than actual connections to and memories of people.
Since Wangero has no real connections to her past, having chosen to leave behind her family and home when she left for school, she can only display her "heritage" through objects on the walls. She hasn't learned how to quilt, and she doesn't have a lot of personal memories or stories of her grandmother or other family members, so she wants these quilts and other objects to create a rich facade of her "African" past.
Her mother and Maggie both recognize the emptiness in this. To them, the objects don't just remind them of their race: they remind them of their loved ones. The quilt reminds them of their grandmother, and they remember her well because they spent time with her and loved her. Maggie learned to quilt from her. Wangero has none of these memories or experiences - she can only "remember" with the thing itself.
Eventually, Maggie, whom her sister had earlier derided, saying she would probably be foolish enough to put the quilt to "everyday use," offers to let Wangero take the quilt, saying she has other ways to remember her grandmother. But her mother wisely says no and take the quilt away from Wangero. She rewards Maggie's loyalty by letting her keep this symbol of family and love - whether she puts it to "everyday use" or not.
Why does the narrator in "Everyday Use" give Maggie the quilts?
Mama, the narrator, ultimately gives the family quilts to Maggie instead of Dee (Wangero) because she recognizes that Dee gets everything she wants, that she's even already claimed the quilts as her own, because they were promised to Maggie, and because Maggie is the daughter who wants them for the right reasons. When Dee insists that she get to keep the quilts that she holds just out of Mama's reach, Maggie actually agrees to let her keep them, saying "'I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts.'" Mama sees that Maggie is the daughter who truly understands and appreciates her family and her heritage; Dee doesn't know the stories like Maggie does, and she only want the quilts so that she can hang them on the wall.
For Mama and Maggie, family history isn't something to be used as decoration; heritage is very much alive for them in the present: when they use handmade benches and butter churn and quilts. Dee just wants something to show off, some proof of something in her past, not to cherish that history now. At this point, Mama snatches the quilts from Dee and drops them into Maggie's lap, claiming the feeling is like "when [she's] in church and the spirit of God touches [her] and [she] get[s] happy and shout[s]." She seems to have always favored Dee -- hoping for an emotional television-style reunion, raising money to send her away to school, buying her fancy clothes, and so forth -- but now she seems to really appreciate Maggie, having realized that Maggie is the one who really loves her family and does so for the right reasons. In the end, she says, "the two of us just sat there enjoying [...]."
The narrator does this because she knows that Maggie will make proper practical use of the quilts - the 'everyday use' of the title - whereas Maggie's sister Dee will just display them as cultural trophies. Dee has left behind her traditional family life as represented by the narrator and Maggie, and looks down on it, but makes a great show of returning to her roots when she visits. Dee comes across as flashy and superficial while Maggie is much quieter but also more sincere. Dee generally gets her own way but for once the narrator wishes to thwart her and reward Maggie instead and does so by giving Maggie the quilts.
In Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use," Dee comes home to visit Mama and Maggie, who are surprised by her newfound enthusiasm for their African heritage and the ways in which she expresses it. Dee is portrayed as an outspoken, educated young woman who is attractive, entitled, and arrogant. In contrast, Maggie is Dee's quiet, passive sister who is less successful in Dee's sense of the term but possesses a genuine knowledge of their family's cultural heritage. Mama and Maggie learn that Dee has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, and Dee begins to express interest in several antique items in Mama's home.
When Dee comes across two homemade quilts that are representative of the family's heritage and history, she asks Mama if she can have them. Dee believes the quilts would be impressive traditional artifacts to display, but Mama says that she promised to give them to Maggie when Maggie gets married. Dee argues that Maggie would put them to "everyday use," and Mama responds by saying that she hopes Maggie will use them often.
Even after Maggie offers to give the quilts to Dee, Mama stands up for Maggie and refuses to allow Dee to take them. Mama understands that Maggie possesses a genuine knowledge of their heritage and understands the sentiment and family meaning attached to the quilts. Mama knows that Maggie recognizes the quilts as living historical items that should be celebrated. Mama also gives the quilts to Maggie because she sees that Maggie deserves a victory in life over her sister and knows that the quilts will bring her joy.
What makes the quilts valuable to Dee and Maggie in "Everyday Use"?
In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," the quilts represent a static art for Dee, one that can be framed like a museum piece. For Maggie, the quilts have a functional and sentimental beauty, and they are meant to be used.
The family quilts have become valuable to Dee only because she wishes to gather some artifacts from her former home. It has now become fashionable for her to have things on display that relate to African heritage, so she has become interested in cultural history. On the other hand, Maggie finds worth in the quilts because of their functionality and sentimental value. She likes the quilts because they are warm and because they have been made by hand throughout generations of her family. In fact, it was her grandmother and aunt who taught her how to quilt.
The mother, too, finds sentimental value in these quilts. Also, she recognizes that Maggie treasures them and looks at the squares made from old clothes with fond memories. So, when Dee grabs the quilts made by her grandmother, the mother tells Dee that she has promised Maggie that the quilts are hers. The mother narrates,
I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style.
Dee argues that these quilts are priceless, and if Maggie puts them on her bed for "everyday use," they will be ruined and "just be in rags." Still, the mother refuses to give them to Dee because Dee tells her she would "hang them" like some static artifact. Reacting to these words about the quilts that she helped to make as a girl, the mother grabs the quilts from Dee and immediately drops them into Maggie's lap. She tells Dee to "[T]ake one or two of the others."
An angry Dee just turns and walks out to her boyfriend who waits by the car. She tells Maggie and her mother as they come out to the car, "You just don't understand....[Y]our heritage." Shortly after the dust of the car settles, Maggie and her mother sit outside, enjoying the evening, not in the least interested in the new world of Dee.
What does the quilt symbolize to the narrator and Maggie in "Everyday Use"?
The quilts represent an intimate bond to community and family identity for Maggie and Mrs. Johnson. To a great extent, the quilt embodies the personalized connection that both mother and daughter share to one another and their past. They both understand the patchwork to the quilt and what each element in the quilt encompasses. Given how Maggie has a memory "like an elephant," both quilts represent the shared memory that both women have about their own identities as African- American women:
They had been pieced 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 Jattell'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.
Both women understand the history of the quilts. They embody the pain and joy in their lives and in their family's narratives. They understand the narratives woven within its frames and recognize its value as embodiments of their family.
Dee does not fully grasp this. Initially, when Mrs. Johnson offered a quilt to Dee upon her leaving for college, she rejected it as "old~fashioned, out of style." It becomes clear that Dee likes material possessions and "wanted nice things." Dee is described as one who "had a style of her own: and knew what style was." Dee recognizes and covets the quilts for their fashionable value, as objects that will enable her to construct her fashion narrative as "embracing" African- American identity and nationalist notions of the good. The quilts become an accessory, something that "fits" a larger narrative as opposed to being the narrative.
It is in this regard where Maggie and her mother differ from Dee. Maggie and Mrs. Johnson understand the symbolic connection to the quilts and their symbolic significance. Even if Maggie is going to ensure that she put the quilts to "everyday use," it does not matter because Mrs. Johnson knows that Maggie understands the intrinsic meaning to the quilt. The ending is one in which Mrs. Johnson validates this condition in her daughter, a condition of loyalty and honoring her past as a reflection of her identity. While Dee rebukes both in failing to understand their "heritage," Mrs. Johnson sits with Maggie, convinced that she understands the heritage and symbolic value of the quilts just fine.
What is the significance of the quilts in "Everyday Use"?
A homemade, handmade quilt is like a scrapbook. As she looks at her quilts, Mama remembers that a certain patch came from her grandfather's paisley shirts, that some pieces came from dresses that Grandma Dee wore 50 years earlier, and even that there was a very small piece of her great-grandfather's Civil War uniform. To Dee, the quilts are a quaint "primitive" artform. To Mama and Maggie, they represent more than that. They are family memories, very personal and very special mementos of loved ones who are gone.
The quilts hold different meanings for the members of Maggie's family, even though they are derived from the same idea. These quilts are familial heirlooms, and Maggie's mother likes to use them as often as possible. They represent the family's history and heritage to each character. However, Maggie, being young, is irreverent of this history, and she sees the quilts as things to get rid of—they are old and outdated, more at place in a museum than in their house.
Her mother and grandmother see the quilts as symbols of history and heritage, and they cherish this history very dearly. This act of clinging to the quilts and the history they represent brings about the majority of the conflict in the story because the older women don't think Maggie respects the family as much as they do, and Maggie wants to stop living in the past and get rid of the outdated quilts.
Dee (Wangero) returns to visit her mother and sister, Maggie. Dee has discovered a new appreciation for her African heritage. However, Dee's appreciation is more voyeuristic and objectifying than it is genuine. She starts singling things out from her mother's home that she wants to have; things that might help her showcase her heritage. For example, she says she wants the top of the butter churn to use as a centerpiece. She doesn't want it for its practical use; she wants to display it for its cultural significance. Dee hasn't really embraced her African or familial heritage in a functional, genuine way; rather, she wants to display such heritage in her home as art.
When Dee asks for the quilts, her mother wants to keep them because they have sentimental (and practical) value. When Mrs. Johnson, the mother, adds that she's been saving the quilts for Maggie's marriage, Dee responds:
"Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use."
Mrs. Johnson adds that she hopes Maggie will use them. Dee does not give up and notes that she intends to hang them up. Dee intends to display them rather than use them for their intended purpose: everyday use.
The quilts represent family (not racial) heritage. Dee wants to use them to display this heritage (for Dee, it is racial more than familial). This isn't a bad thing but the problem is that Dee is more concerned with showing this heritage, like an exotic prize, than living it. Mrs. Johnson and Maggie would rather use the quilts as quilts, thus honoring the familial value they have. (The quilts were knitted by Grandma Dee and Aunt/Big Dee and contained pieces of clothing worn by Grandma Dee and Grandpa Jarrell). Dee wants to create the impression that she is in touch with her heritage, familial and racial. Mrs. Johnson and Maggie simply want to continue to live the heritage that they have been living. Part of this continuation is to use the quilts as quilts.
The quilt and the butter churn in the story "Everyday Use," by Alice Walker, are the primary household object-symbols in Mrs. Johnson's house. Mrs. Johnson, the narrative voice in the story, must decide which of her daughters will receive them. There's the older Dee-Wangero, who returns from the city wearing the trappings of a neo-Black Muslim convert. She wants the butter churn to be a centerpiece on her table and the quilt to adorn her wall as a tapestry. Then there's the shy, scarred Maggie, her younger daughter, who--by measuring self-worth--doesn't feel entitled to either of them.
Mrs. Johnson decides to keep the heirlooms in the house by giving them to Maggie. She is entitled to them because she will use them for their intended, domestic function: the butter churn for churning butter and the quilt for keeping warm. They've been so for three generations and, according to Mrs. Johnson, Dee's sense of entitlement by way of cultural fad will not sway her into giving them to her.
The story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker presents the dynamics of a family of three African American women. Although the women are related, their individual life journeys have made them very different one from the other. Yet, one thing seems to bring them together: the family quilt.
The quilt represents the different perspectives of family, life, tradition, and culture that exist within each of the women. Dee, one of the daughters, has “made it” in life and now lives in the city. As part of her transformation, she undergoes a form of conversion in which she claims to be closer to her African roots. She even changes her name to Wangero, as a way to refuse to have a name like Dee, which reminds her of the “people who oppress her.” As part of this transformation, she also requests family heirlooms to take with her back to the city. She sets her eyes on the family quilt because it has a lot of history: Her wounded ancestors were comforted in it, babies were cared for with it, and it has changed as the family itself has changed. The quilt was intended for the other sister, Maggie, who was about to get married. Dee (Wangero) truly felt that she was more deserving of the quilt because her entire circle of city friends would treat it as a museum piece. Unfortunately, her desire for these heirlooms is nothing but a wish to make a fashion statement for her own caprice.
Although Maggie allowed Dee to keep the quilt, she did it because of the loyalty she feels for her sister, and because she did not feel worthy of the heirloom. Contrastingly, Dee cared little about loyalty or the preservation of family history and was willing to take the heirloom just for its material value.
When Mama finally made her choice, she gave it to Maggie. It was precisely because she noticed the value and love that Maggie still had for her family which made her more worthy of such a symbol of family unity as was the quilt. Therefore, love and unity triumphed, ever against the changing times.
Why does Dee want to save the quilts for Maggie in "Everyday Use"?
In Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," Dee wants the quilts simply because they would make attractive accents to her new home and her new life, not because they have significance having been sewn by hand by women who came before her, worked hard, suffered and built a life for themselves. For Dee has rejected that part of her heritage.
Her sister Maggie sees the world in a much different way. It is because of the hands that have joined the tidbits of cloth together that she values the quilts and wants to use them "everyday," and so honor the lives of love and sacrifice of her ancestors.
Maggie doesn't see very good and she is not overly intelligent. Mother and daughter have more in common with each other than with Dee. Dee has left her roots of poverty behind her. She cares nothing for her heritage, a major theme in the story.
Dee is very intelligent. She can use language. She reads. Her humor is "scalding" like bubbles in lye—a harsh chemical substance often used to make soaps. There seems to be little softness in her, and little desire to recognize her family or the people she comes from. She has not visited in a long time. This is something of an event for the narrator, but Maggie isn't greatly impressed.
When Dee arrives at the house, with a "stocky man," she is wearing a traditional African dress. Dee greets them, "Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!" The man has taken an African name—Asalamalakim: but he'll answer to Hakim-a-barber. Dee announces that she has a new name as well:
Not 'Dee,' Wangero Leewanika Kemajo!
Dee also announces that the person who was once Dee is now dead.
I couldn't bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me.
Although Dee wants nothing to do with the house and no wish to acknowledge the women who made her life possible, she is particularly interested in the handmade benches and the old butter churn. The churn, she announces...
...I can use...as a centerpiece for the alcove table...
She proceeds to take it and wrap it to go. In fact, Dee who lives comfortably in the city is happy to take the several items from her mother's home...a home that doesn't even have windows, but only holes with strips of rawhide covering each opening. The narrator makes note of the many hands that used the churn, and how they have worn the wood down, but Dee is oblivious.
After dinner Dee comes into the room with two quilts she wants.
They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them.
Dee's description reveals exactly how she feels about them:
"Mama," Wangero said sweet as a bird. "Can I have these old quilts?"
I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed.
The slamming is done by Maggie, and this tells the reader how she feels about Dee's desire to have the "old quilts." The value of the quilts is in their age, not by who carefully stitched them. Dee assumes she will get them. The narrator explains that they are for Maggie after she marries. Dee is appalled:
She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.
What makes them valuable to Dee is that they are "priceless," not the hands that made them. As if the Holy Ghost had come over her in church, the narrator hugs Maggie and gives them to her, knowing it's where the quilts belong because Maggie will appreciate them as Dee never could.
Why does Maggie like the quilts in "Everyday Use"?
Unlike her sister, Dee, Maggie loves the family quilts because she knows the people whose lives and stories are represented by them. She even knows how to quilt herself. Her mother has promised Maggie the quilts, which Dee has already once refused, when she gets married because they are meaningful to her. Dee, on the other hand, only seems to want them so that she can display them as proof of her heritage without really valuing or understanding it as Maggie does. Maggie knows the stories and feels personally attached to them. When their mother realizes their difference in motive — as well as Dee’s sense of entitlement and Maggie’s humility — she snatches the quilts from Dee and gives them to her younger daughter because Maggie wants the quilts for the right reasons.
How do quilts hold different meanings for Dee and Maggie in "Everyday Use"?
This is an interesting way to look at the quilts. Symbolism, of course, is defined as a concrete object that represents an abstract idea. In this case, the concrete objects are the family’s antique heirloom quilts Mama promised Maggie would inherit upon her marriage to John Thomas. Dee fusses about this because she wants the quilts for herself; she chastises Mama for thinking of giving the quilts to Maggie, whom Dee says would use everyday until they were reduced to tatters.
In her wisdom, Mama realizes that Dee doesn’t really understand the meaning of the quilts and resolves to give them to Maggie as promised.
Now, if one were to argue that the quilts symbolize Maggie and Dee’s relationship, it’s important to characterize each. At the beginning of the story, Mama says that she believes Maggie has always been jealous of Dee. Maggie seems anxious as they wait for Dee’s arrival, even hesitating to greet her sister. This shows that Maggie is somewhat uncomfortable around Dee.
When Dee visits, she doesn’t seem to interact directly with Maggie at all. This shows that their relationship is definitely not a close one. When she condescends to Maggie about the quilts, Dee reveals her superiority complex: she knows that she is better than Maggie because of her intelligence and acculturation in the modern world outside the isolated lives of Maggie and Mama.
The quilts are described in the story thusly:
In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jattell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's unifotm that he wore in the Civil War.
The quilts are clearly very old, and they are made of various pieces and scraps that connect with the family’s history. Dee wants these two quilts because she wants to preserve this history. Maggie, on the other hand, wants to honor this history by using the quilts in the same way that her ancestors did. When Maggie resolves to give Dee the quilts, even though Maggie clearly wants them, this indicates her selfless nature.
Considering these discussions, the relationship between Dee and Maggie is worn and barely stitched together just like the quilts. Maggie is the only one who is willing to concede in order to please Dee, which shows that they’re relationship has always been one-sided.
Mama resolves to give Maggie the quilts not only because she believes Maggie will honor the family’s heritage, but also because she realizes how badly Dee has always treated her sister.
In "Everyday Use," why is the mother reluctant to give Dee the quilts?
The mother is reluctant to let Dee have the quilts because they have been promised to Maggie who is about to be married. Also, she knows that Maggie cherishes the quilts as part of her family heritage. Maggie's tender feelings are shown clearly when she speaks so lovingly of her grandmother who made one of the quilts. Dee, however, values them only as material possessions, objects of art that she can carry away to hang on her walls where they will look fashionable in a folk-art kind of way. Although Maggie is prepared to give them up, her mother will not allow it. The quilts will go to Maggie, where they will be treasured.
Why doesn't Dee want Maggie to have the quilts in "Everyday Use"?
Dee does not want Maggie to have the quilts for several reasons. First, Dee wants to take them back to her home, where they will become decorative items. For example, the churn she takes from her mother's house is to become a centerpiece for her alcove table. Dee takes the time to look over everything in her mother and sister's home with a view of how it could enhance her sophisticated, modern home. She makes it clear that while she doesn't yet know what she will do with the dasher, she'll think of an artistic way to showcase it.
However, when Dee asks if she can have the quilts, her mother puts her foot down, telling her that she has promised these to Maggie. Dee argues with her mother, telling her that her sister wouldn't appreciate the quilts. Dee wishes to hang them up to display them like museum pieces, and in her mind, the quilts should be used as such. She knows and resents the fact that Maggie would use these items in "everyday use" for warmth and comfort.
While Maggie acquiesces to her sister taking the quilts, her mother, remembering the derision with which Dee had previously looked on the quilts before she saw them as valuable for decoration, refuses and reaffirms that Maggie is to have the precious family quilts.
What does the quilt symbolize for Dee and Maggie in "Everyday Use"?
Dee is the narrator's daughter in "Everyday Use." She has grown up and moved off to the city to live a new kind of life. She has turned her back on her family heritage and taken on an African-American name. She has no time or desire to connect to "her" people, those who have come before her and lived in the United States for generations, working hard and loving hard, in order that she might have the life she now has. To Dee, the quilt is nothing more than a piece of art: something that would look nice in her new place.
For Maggie, Dee's sister, life is very different. She has stayed at home. She has not experienced the same success Dee has. She is much more closely tied to her family, and is making plans to marry. Where Dee is attractive and larger than life, Maggie is quieter and plainer. She is a simple person, with down-to-earth expectations of life.
The quilt becomes a "bone of contention" when Dee insists that she should have it. At the same time, however, she does not want it because of the loving family hands that have toiled over it. She has no emotional connection to it at all. However, when the narrator hears her daughter Maggie speak of how much the piece means to her, it gives her pause.
Maggie wants the quilt, but says that Dee can have it if it means so much to her; Maggie explains that she does not need the quilt to bring her close to the hands that have worked so hard on it, specifically her grandmother. Her grandmother lives in her heart.
Hearing this, without hesitation, the narrator gives the quilt to Maggie because she wanted it for all the right reasons.
What symbol is critical to the theme of heritage in "Everyday Use"?
Names are also symbols of heritage in the story "Everyday Use." Mama, the narrator of the story, names her older daughter Dee. However, when Dee, who is better educated than her mother and younger sister, Maggie, comes to visit, Dee says her name is now Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Dee claims that the name Dee is symbolic of her oppression, so she takes an African-influenced name. In abandoning her name, Dee also abandons family tradition. She is named after her aunt Dicie, Mama's sister. Her aunt was named after her Grandmother Dee, who was named after her mother. The name "Dee" goes back in the family to the Civil War. By changing her name, Dee is abandoning her family's traditions and heritage. Her mother can't even pronounce her daughter's new name, and it's as if Dee doesn't appreciate the value of what came before her.
The Johnson family quilts are a crucial symbol to understand heritage in this story. For Mama and Maggie, these quilts are meant to be used, just as heritage is something that continues to exist and is alive in the present. Dee, on the other hand, considers the quilts to be representative of a heritage that is in the past. She thinks the quilts should not be used as they were intended; instead, they should be preserved and displayed. Mama and Maggie do not put their heritage on display; rather, they live it by using these quilts (as well as other items that have been handmade by members of the family through the years) every day; this accounts for the story's title, "Everyday Use." Dee thinks it's "backward" of Maggie to use the quilts because they will fall apart, but Mama and Dee believe it only makes sense to use them and remember the people who made them (Dee doesn't even know the family stories). Although Maggie and Dee both appreciate the quilts, they see those quilts—and the concept of heritage—quite differently.
Who receives the quilts at the end of "Everyday Use"?
At the end of "Everyday Use," Maggie gets the quilts. Initially, Mama intended to give one of the quilts to Dee; however, when Dee left for school she turned the quilt down because she was not interested in hanging on to any memory of her family's hard-working, lower-class lifestyle. Mama then resolves to give the quilts to Maggie so that she has them when she gets married. Mama knows that Maggie will appreciate the quilts and put them to good use. But when Dee returns for a visit, she has a new perspective on her family and wants to preserve the things that they have made as artifacts that represent her family's cultural heritage. Dee, however, does not even have a clear idea about who made the items--she assumes that her Uncle Buddy whittled both a churn and a dasher when in reality the latter was made by another uncle--and Maggie knows the true history behind all the items (she corrects Dee by supplying the name of the uncle who made dasher). Maggie has a true understanding and appreciation for the items that her family has made, so Mama is happy to give her the quilts at the end of the story.
How would Maggie and Dee differently use the quilts in "Everyday Use"?
Maggie and Dee have a very different idea of what heritage is and how it should be remembered. For example, Dee was named after her aunt, who was named after Dee's grandmother, who was named after her mother, and so on. However, rather than honor her name as a family name, as something that connects her to this recent history of strong women, Dee chooses to rename herself something that has no connection to her family because it seems to recall a more long-ago history. Further, Dee insists on taking artifacts from her mother's house, items that Mama and Maggie still use daily, so that she can do "something artistic" with them, even making one into a "centerpiece." Maggie knows the stories behind all of these items, and she knows how to use them for their intended purposes. Dee simply wants to display them as evidence of some history to which she isn't really emotionally connected.
It's the same thing with the quilts. Dee cannot understand why Mama would give them to Maggie when, as Dee says, "'Maggie can't appreciate [them]. . . . She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.'" Dee wants to hang the quilts on her wall, to display them as evidence of some heritage that is in the past, that is dead. Maggie, however, knows how to quilt and would use the quilts for the reason for which they were created: to keep warm. For Maggie, heritage is something present, something living, something that she keeps alive every day in her use of these items and by learning how to quilt in the tradition that her mother and grandmother used. Dee, on the other hand, simply wants to display these items, including the quilts, in order to show off.
The two sisters were raised together by their mother in a humble home in the countryside. Maggie stayed home with the mother while her sister proceeded to college. Dee had always been scornful of their way of life back in the countryside. She returned home with a Muslim man whom she introduced as her boyfriend. Her mother and sister noticed that she had changed. Dee was more sophisticated and seemingly in touch with her African culture. She had changed her name to a more Africanized version to confirm her new identity.
She showed interest in traditionally hand-woven quilts done by her grandmother but promised to Maggie. Dee wanted the quilts so she could display them in her house because she viewed them as cultural symbols not to be used but preserved. She believed that Maggie was unable to understand their significance and would put them to everyday use in her matrimonial home.
In "Everyday Use," what do the quilts symbolize for Dee, Maggie, and their mother?
For Maggie and Mother, their view of the quilts is more literal. Because they are simpler people, objects such as quilts were constructed for practical, everyday use—not for hanging up like artifacts, as Dee insists. The factfound connection to her senses of culture and history, which she has adopted through her embrace of Black Nationalism. According to her mother's recollection, she had expressed no interest in the quilts before: "I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style."
Figuratively, Dee's assumption of ownership over the quilts is indicative of the entitlement and vanity Mother had always sensed in her daughter. Dee had hated their first house and watched, with "a look of concentration," as "the last dingy gray board" fell "in toward the red-hot brick chimney." Her schooling in Augusta had not made her more sympathetic to Maggie and Mother, but more contemptuous of their ignorance: "[She] [p]ressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away, like dimwits, at just the moment we seemed about to understand."
On her return home, she insists on taking the hand-stitched quilts made from her grandmother's old dresses, quilts that Mother had promised to Maggie "for when she marries John Thomas." In making this promise, Mother is attempting to maintain the quilts as part of family tradition. Dee is indifferent to her mother's promise and indifferent to Maggie's equal position within her family's tradition, due to her supposedly superior understanding of history and heritage.
For Alice Walker, the motif of quilting is central to the connection of a family's heritage and the past. Therefore, the question of who should own the quilts in "Everyday Use" comes down to the conflict between two definitions of one's heritage.
On the one hand, Dee, who has transformed herself into a Black Nationalist, having changed her name and refused to eat pork, thinks that she should possess the artifacts of the old days when blacks were suppressed; things such as the butter churn and the quilt will serve as reminders of the past and the new liberation and the progress that African-Americans have made. On the other hand, Maggie "knows how to quilt" and would put the quilts to "everyday use," letting them serve as a real reminder of her family, not as an artifact separate from her memories of Grandma Dee, whose pieces of dresses are part of the quilt.
Thus, for Maggie and her mother, the quilts are something with life in them with pieces of dresses and uniforms, reminders of generations before them and their time quilting together, while for Wangero they are merely symbolic of the suppression and poverty from which blacks have at last risen: "It's a new day for us."
From Wangero's arms, the mother snatches the quilts because she realizes that Maggie values tradition over progress.
And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed.
Wangero's visit has brought Maggie and her mother closer together.
What is special about the two quilts Dee wants in "Everyday Use"?
The motif of quilting is one that carries much significance in "Everyday Use"; for, the piecing together of scraps of material that bear the history of family member's lives continues their memory. And, what one does with these quilts defines a family's true heritage. While Dee wishes to put thses quilts on display as an artifact of times past, Maggie desires to use them for what they are--simple blankets. She appreciates the time-taking efforts of her grandmother and others who have placed these pieces into the quilt as the formation of a quilt suggests the strength to be found in connecting with one's roots and one's past.
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 penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War.
The quilts that the mother takes from Dee's hands and returns to Maggie symbolize the conflict of tradition and progress. While Dee suggests that putting the quilts to "everyday use" is backward, the mother returns the quilts to Maggie because "Maggie knows how to quilt"; that is, Maggie knows how to appreciate the pieces of their lives and has not abandoned them for some faddish way of life as has Dee. Having been offered these quilts before when she went off to college, Dee rejected them; now, however, she wishes to have them as an artifact and place them in a frame. This type of frame is in sharp contrast to the frame in which the quilt was formed as the mother and grandmother and others pieced it together.
''quilts are designed for everyday use, pieced wholes defying symmetry and pattern,... signs of the sacred generations of women who have always been alien to a world of literate words and stylish fancy" (Baker and Pierce-Baker)
The two quilts that Dee wants are pieces of her ancestors lives, "the sacred generations of women" of whom, her mother realizes, Maggie is, indeed, a part.
Why does Dee consider the quilts priceless in "Everyday Use"?
Dee (Wangero) has returned from college and has changed her name to reflect her new interest in her African heritage. This can be an admirable thing to do but Dee loses touch with her more immediate heritage with her more immediate family and ancestors. In addition, Dee is more interested in displaying her cultural heritage than she is in living it; that is to say she's more interested in looking like she's in touch with her African heritage than she is in actually using that heritage/cultural experience in "everyday" practical ways. Mrs. Johnson and Maggie appreciate the quilts for the practical use (and because they were made from dresses which Grandma had stitched herself). However, Dee thinks the quilts are priceless because of what they symbolize rather than what they were made for. Dee doesn't intend to use the quilts (Maggie would use them "every day"); she (Dee) intends to hang them up.
"But they're priceless!" she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. "Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!"
Dee just wants to use them to display her culture and this makes her cultural expressions seem superficial and empty. Although Dee places emphasis on the quilts' symbolic value as cultural art, she places more emphasis on the word "priceless" and she even says that if they are used (by Maggie) every day, they will lose some value. So there is definitely the idea of materialism and monetary value implicit in Dee's symbolic interest in the quilts.
What is the quilt's importance in "Everyday Use" for Dee, Mamma, and Maggie?
The quilts as metaphors
The quilt is a metaphor for the lives of Dee, Maggie, and her mother. Each square is a part of the family heritage, symbolic of its members. For instance, there is one very small, faded blue piece, a part of a Union uniform belonging to Great Grandpa Ezra. There are, likewise, other squares made from scraps of dresses worn by Grandma Dee. Thus, the intended purpose of the quilts for each woman indicates her perspective on them.
The use of the quilts as blankets involves the fabrics' touching a living member of the family, rather than the quilts hanging in an isolated spot, away from any human contact. But, Dee, who has changed her name to Wangero and wants the quilts as artifacts, is appalled when she is told that the mother intends to give two of the quilts to Maggie,
"Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!...She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use."
This remark is, of course, ironic since the mother gives the quilts to Maggie because she will use them. For the mother, the quilts are part of beings who have lived and died, relatives whose heritage is woven together into the quilts, quilts that carry life and, metaphorically, unify the lives of the past with those of the present.
The quilts as symbols
The quilts also symbolize the conflict of holding to tradition with that of progressive thinking. Wangero, who has joined the new black nationalist movement rejects anything that is traditional or connected to the "oppressors." She changes her name and divorces herself from any objects that reflect "servitude." When the mother says that Maggie "knows how to quilt," Wangero disgustedly retorts that her sister should "make something" of herself; she should reject the old ways and not be "backward," and become more progressive.
In "Everyday Use," why does Dee want the quilts from her mother?
My reading of "Everyday Use" is a little different from that of the previous post. Yes, Dee wants to acknowledge her heritage, but at heart, she wants her mother's things for materialistic reasons. All her life, Dee has looked down on her upbringing. When her mother and the church collected the money to send her to school, she thanked her mother by writing to her that "no matter where we 'choose' to live, she will manage to come see us." She didn't offer to have them come and live with her.
Now educated and socially aware, Dee has changed her name to one that sounds more African, and she wears clothing and has adopted a lifestyle that reflects that heritage. But she has forgotten her real heritage. She doesn't want the quilts because they were lovingly stitched from old clothing that tells a story. She wants to hang them on the wall and show her friends how "hip" she is. Dee was named after grandmother and her aunt, but she ignores that heritage by calling herself Wangero. She has lost sight of what is really important. It is by using those things as they were meant to be used that she honor her true heritage.
Dee in "Everyday Use" wants the quilts, which her mother and sister Maggie actually still use for everyday use around the house, as a symbol of her heritage and her connectedness to her ancient ancestors. This is a point of misunderstanding between Dee and her mother because her mother defines her own connectedness to her ancestry through her memories of her mother and grandmothers, whose hands made the quilts.
Dee has become educated through a college education and has come to value a connectedness that overrides the past identifier of "slave" since the new definition of connectedness supersedes the time of slavery by reaching back to the era before her ancestors were ever held captive for and by Americans.
Dee wants the quilts to display them in her home as symbols of this greater heritage and as symbols of that which defined her ancestor's humanity before captivity dehumanized them. Neither Dee nor her mother are right or wrong since Dee's mother's sense of ancestry extends only to her valued and cherished memories.
What are the quilts in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"?
The quilts in the story symbolize Maggie and Dee's family heritage. Made by their mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, each quilt was made from scraps of clothing once worn by the girls' ancestors, including pieces of their great-grandfather's Civil War uniform. The girls view these quilts quite differently. To Maggie, they represent her family; she still remembers with love her grandmother who made one of them. To Dee, however, the quilts have no emotional value. She regards them as a type of folk art that will look impressive hanging upon her walls. (Dee embraces her African heritage while rejecting her personal family history.) Their differing attitudes toward the quilts capture the sisters' conflicting values.
What is the symbolism and importance of the quilts in "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker?
Alice Walker uses the character of "Dee" to illustrate those African-Americans in the 1970s who chose to pursue their black heritage, forgetting that they are also a part of America. Black power and the Black Muslims were in vogue. In "Everyday Use," Mama narrates the story of the relationship between her and her daughters.
Mama had no education. She could work like a man. Conflict was not a part of nature. Her comfort level included staying home and taking care of her family.
Dee, her oldest daughter, who calls herself Wangero now, has come home not really for a visit, but to find things that she wants to take back to her own home. From the time she arrives, Dee is rummaging around looking for things.
When Dee discovers the quilts, both Mama and Maggie react strongly. At first, Mama tells Dee that she should not want these old ones, but take the newe ones that Mama had made. The quilts that Dee wants have a special importance to Mama and Maggie. They knew where they came from and how they were made. The quilts represented the strong women in the family. Mama remembers exactly the day they were quilted.
They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them.
These quilts represent Mama's family and her legacy. Symbolically, each piece of material belonged to someone in the family going all the way back to the Civil War. Now, Dee who does not understand or remember anything about the family, wants Mama's most precious possessions.
For once in her life, Mama tells Dee "No." Those quilts belong to Maggie. Dee becomes furious. She was going to hang the quilts on the wall representing her African heritage. When Mama reaches to touch the quilts, Dee pulls away from her; then, Dee had gone too far. Maggie says it is okay if Dee takes them because she does not need the quilts to remember Grandma Dee. Dee tells her mother:
'Maggie can's appreciate these quilts! she said. 'She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.'
Dee and her superficial black power have left Mama cold. For the first time, she sees who Dee really is: disrespectful and unappreciative. The quilts will stay.
Mama had offered Dee a quilt when she left for college and Dee said that they were old fashioned. After Dee leaves, Mama has a new appreciation for Maggie, who knows the history of the family, loves Mama and her legacy.
What other symbols, besides the quilt, relate to the theme in "Everyday Use?"
One symbol that relates to the overall theme is the dress that Dee Johnson wears. Mrs. Johnson makes it clear that she and Maggie are accustomed to simple living, functional clothing made by hand. In contrast, Dee wears an ornate, colorful dress that serves as a symbol of her ostentatious lifestyle; she doesn't want to be connected to anything in her old life and so takes pains even down to her clothes to seem different.
A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out.
(Walker, "Everyday Use," xroads.virginia.edu)
This description is contrasted with clothing that Maggie wears; a simple pink skirt and red blouse, just clothing with no other purpose than to cover and protect. Maggie knows enough of reality to not really care what she looks like; she is cowed by Dee, though, and is embarrassed to be seen in comparison. The extremely showy dress is a symbol of Dee's new lifestyle, her new outlook on life, and the difference between Dee and her family.
What "Everyday Use" would Dee assign to the quilts if given them?
The idea of the story, "Everyday Use" is that Dee wouldn't put the quilts to everyday use. That's the difference between her and the other two members of her family.
When Dee lived with her family, apparently, the family was rural and backward and "beneath" her. Currently, she has become educated and hip and urban. What was once backward is now quaint. The quilts are something from her past, from the past of her people. She sees the quilts as works of art, not as things to be put to every day use. To Dee, using the quilts to, say, cover up on the couch or use as a comforter on a bed would be a travesty and a waste. She would, most likely, hang them on a wall as decorations or display them in some manner.
Dee is a "new" black woman, breaking away from the boundaries society placed upon black women for years.