Preview

Old Quilts In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
351 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Old Quilts In Alice Walker's Everyday Use
My daughters are such a stark contrast. One is very homely and not all that bright, but the other has all that the world would admire. Dee, she is a bit harder to get along with. I know that I am not all that she would desire me to be. Sometimes, I wish we were like those families that I see on the television set. Unfortunately, one day I’ll be all alone when my daughters are gone. They are both growing up and becoming their own. Maggie will be with her husband and Dee she will be transformed by some educated world that is unknown to me. I don’t understand her new notions. She leaves and doesn’t want to bring her friends. She has never had friends. Then the one person she does bring I can barely say his name. How do I deal with her new ways? …show more content…
Like the old benches that we always sat on. They are no different than before. Why does she want grandma’s butter dish? What ruckus over some old quilts. The strange thing about it is that I offered them to her and she did not want them before. But now they have some meaning to her that they must sit. These old things are not for sitting! I won’t forget where I came from. I lived it! Why should they sit and not be used? Those quilts should be used, and Maggie would put use them as they should be. For once, I have to shift the tide to Maggie. Stand up for Maggie and not give Dee all that she wants. Dee is not Dee any more she is Wangero and I have to stand up for the daughter that I have left. Maggie does not always get what she wants, she doesn’t live life as demanding as Wangero. These quilts will let her win for once, with Dee gone she will lose such nervousness. Without the pressure of Wangero, we are something like those families on the television

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Background is not the only element of culture that shapes our view of others and the world. Parental influence is another element of culture that shapes our view of others and the world. Parents can sometimes influence how someone views others and the world. In Teresa Acosta’s poem “my mother pieced quilts” the author views her mother’s work of piecing quilts. Teresa Acosta admires her mother’s work of piecing quilts. But it was just that every morning I awoke to these October ripened canvases. This supports the claim because this is a somewhat influence of what the author sees the world. I remember when I was ten or eleven years old there was this lady who made scarves, hats and blankets. This view of the winter attire showed me a way of…

    • 177 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Everyday Use” symbolizes the importance of quilts and the value put upon them by a mother and her two children. “I try to teach my heart not to want things it can't have” once said Alice Walker. In many cases I relate this quote to the character Maggie in the short story “Everyday Use.” Maggie is shy and bashful because of her scars. She feels that her older sister Dee had had it made while they were coming up. Dee had gotten the chance to go to college while Maggie had stayed home with her mom. Maggie became more in touch and aware of her ancestral roots because she had stayed home with her mom. One important object often associated with “Everyday Use” is the quilts. Dee felt like she should have the quilt because to her she had deserved them more than Maggie did. She felt like she had understood the importance of the quilts and she would put them to proper use. Ironically enough, she said that…

    • 867 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story Dee asks her mother for some of the quilts which she and another family member had put together. This sudden interest in the family items was quite curious at first to Mama because these quilts were offered to Dee once before, in which at that time she showed no interest. Now all of a sudden she is interested in her mother’s most treasured of quilts- the ones that were made specifically from the old scraps of their ancestor’s clothing. These quilts had the very history of the Johnson family sewn into them, and Dee wanted them. At first it seemed at though Dee wanted them for the sentimental value which they carried, but it was soon apparent that her soul purpose was to put them on display. She wanted to hang them on her walls as to add a show of higher importance to her life for all her visitors to see. What is ironic in this is that the very thing she left home to escape is the one thing she coveted most to present in her home- the connection with her family history. It is almost as if she wanted nothing to do with her family’s heritage until it became fashionable to do so. At the end of the story, Mama saw Dee’s true intention for her quilts and gave it to who she thought worthy of them- Maggie. Maggie embraced her heritage and intended to put these quilts to everyday practical use. This ending just signifies Walker’s meaning of heritage, which is not meant to sit on the shelf, but rather reflect a part of history that remains alive in this present…

    • 985 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eveyday Use

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Dee, the eldest daughter, has ventured from the rural world she grew up in but never felt a part of. The story is set in the context of her returning home for the first time since she left for college. Maggie the younger daughter has never left home. As the story unfolds Dee's motives become apparent. She has come home to retrieve objects from her former life that are meaningful to her. She plans to incorporate them into her décor. Mama relates her sad attempt to find value in her family and claim her inheritance.…

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dee asks Mama Johnson if she could take the butter churn with the butter still intact as the style has become fashionable to decorate with heritage pieces. She also demands two quilts, made by her grandmother from scraps of fabric that were once memorable articles of clothing. However, Mama Johnson has already promised these quilts to Maggie for her impending marriage. Mama Johnson now has to decide whether to yield to Dee’s demands or keeping her promise to Maggie. This is the pivotal point in the story when Mama Johnson rises against Dee and tells her no, and Dee “gasped like a bee had stung her” (Welty 556). Mama Johnson thinks, “I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college” (Welty 556). Those quilts were insignificant when she went to college; however, she has now become worldlier and realizes their value. Dee’s dissatisfaction with her name is another illustration where she doesn’t accept her heritage. She had never been denied anything in her past, and when Mama Johnson denies Dee the quilts, Mama Johnson has shown how Maggie is just as vital to her and puts up a boundary with Dee. Her visit illustrates how Dee still suffers from being self-important, and that her family…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    She thinks to herself, “I didn’t want to bring up how I has offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style”(320). The mother is in disbelief at Dee, who only wants to use her heritage as something for show and tell. Those same blankets she had once refused she now wanted because they fit her own aesthetic, and not at all for the value and meaning behind those quilts. The mother then decides to do something unheard of and, “hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snactched the quilts out of Miss Wangero’s hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap”(321). The mom has chosen her true heritage over the false, glamorized one that her eldest daughter has decided to create. She gives the quilts to Maggie because in her heart she knows that Miss Wangero does not deserve them, that Maggie can truly appreciate them and know who she is and where she’s come…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We discover that she spends way too much time on the appearance of things instead of the meaning of them. She has changed her name to Wangero because she said that she "couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me."(96) Dee does not understand the true meaning of heritage, she thinks that heritage is something that can and should be put on display only if it is in fashion at the time. Dee speaks about the bench that her father had made and the butter dish that her grandmother had as if the were just objects that could be bought at any old store. "I never knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints, she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's butter dish."(97) Everything that holds memories for Mama and Maggie of people that have gone she treats as though they shouldn't be used, they should be…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “Everyday Use” understanding the importance of your heritage is a value that you carry with you throughout your life, suggested by “Mama.” However, Maggie and Dee have different views on how they perceive their heritage.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” Mama, the narrator of the story, is rather distant with her daughter Dee and dreams about reconciling with her on a television show. Specifically, she imagines Dee expressing gratitude for all that she has done for her, while embracing her (Mama) “with tears in her eyes (Walker 315).” It is obvious that Mama doesn’t understand her daughter’s life choice to adopt an African lifestyle and feels that Dee is rejecting her origins and family. Furthermore, the reader can see that Mama has a troublesome relationship with Dee by the amount of tension between them. This strained relationship becomes clear when Dee “went to the trunk at the foot of (Mama’s) bed and started rifling through it (Walker 320).” The narrator…

    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever not seen eye to eye with your mother? In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use”, we are shown how many of the choices we make and the things we value create our identity. This story focuses on two characters, mama and her daughter Dee (Wangero), who struggle to see the same way about their heritage. Dee wants the things made by her grandmother, to not admire it as an artifact, but rather to remake it. She wants to take them, and change them to match her lifestyle as it is today. She loves them for the way they look. Mama, on the other hand, views the things from her mother as artifacts. She loves the items more than how they look. She admires the quilts because of their everyday use. Transformations take place between these characters. Dee’s transformation is more external than it is internal. She shows her transformation in the way she speaks, the clothes she wears, and her judgement. Mama’s transformation is more internal. She begins to see Dee’s real thoughts, and she stands up against her. When she takes the quilts away from Dee, she doesn’t only stand up for herself, but Maggie, as…

    • 809 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alice Walker Heritage

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages

    While the Johnson's sit down to lunch, Dee begins to admire the butter churn and the dasher. Although she has a brief recollection of Uncle Buddy whittling the churn, she is much more interested in the churn top as a centerpiece for her alcove table. Following lunch Dee re-discovers the quilts. The quilts were composed of an eclectic array of material including, " scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece…that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform he wore in the Civil War." (489) Dee decides she wants the quilts to hang on the wall and deems the priceless. However, Mrs. Johnson clearly remembers offering Dee a quilt to take away for university and Dee proclaiming they were old fashioned and out of style. The argument over the quilts symbolizes the black woman's dilemma in confronting the future. After Mrs. Johnson confirms she is giving the quilts to Maggie, Dee states, " You just don't understand…Your heritage". (491) Dee believes heritage to be as tangible as a quilt on the wall or a quaint butter churn in the…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alice Walker Heritage

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In “Everyday Use” Alice Walker shows the hardships and conflicts of African Americans lives during the late twentieth century. The story takes place in the 1960’s, and shows of the social differences that blacks would experience during this black power movement. Many blacks in America don’t think or care about their heritage and ancestry, but some focused on connecting with past roots. Alice Walker shows through the story of the two different ways of dealing with African American pasts and heritage.…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, anthologist, teacher, editor, publisher, womanist and activist, Alice Malsenior Walker was born at home on February 9, 1944, near Ward’s Chapel, a neighboring community of Eatonton, Georgia. She is the eighth and last child of Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant Walker. In 1994, Walker changed her middle name to Tallulah-Kate, in honor of her maternal great-grandmother, the African-Cherokee ancestor Tallulah Calloway, and of Kate Nelson, her paternal grandmother.As a self-described “daughter of the rural peasantry,” Walker grew up in a loving household in the years following the end of the Great Depression. Though poor, the family…

    • 1317 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Many things have made our country how it is today. Many contributions are mentioned. However, African-Americans are not mentioned much even though they have contributed a lot to us. However I will show one specific contribution, quilt making.…

    • 88 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    She stepped slowly from the doorframe, letting the light touch her old and faded face as if it were the sun that was to appreciate her presence. She hardly went on walks when I was around. She’d always just stay in and moan about it being too bright. I definitely remembered this old hag. And if you think 'old hag' was a bit of a harsh term, I am more than willing to argue. Despite her frail appearance and gentle expression, I know what truly lied behind the facet of wrinkles. Stubborn and headstrong like that of a wild boar, with a tongue so sharp, one could nearly be sliced in two if Katherine believed you to be worth her time in the very least, let alone bothered to utter a word to you at all. As a boy, I had the misfortune of continuously…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays