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

Alice Walker Everyday Use - Essay Example However, a deeper reading makes it clear that becoming â€Å"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). â€Å"She’s dead,† she says of the old Dee (Walker, Para. 27). Dee â€Å"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 â€Å"mere things or aestheticized objects† (Whitsitt, 8), to be flaunted as artistic curios. Similarly, her desire for the quilts has â€Å"nothing to do with traditions, only with fashion† (Hoel, Para. 16). She desires them as fashion statemen ts and as hand-stitched antiques of considerable monetary value. Dee’s rejection of her family and her contempt 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 â€Å"an inherent understanding of heritage based on her love 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 â€Å"which represent history and tradition, binding women and men to the past and the past to the present† (Whitsitt, 2). Maggie knows that â€Å"Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dash† (Walker, Para.52). Although she shares Dee’s estimate of the quilts, â€Å"But they’re priceless† (Walker, Para. 68), their value to her is based on her love of the people who made them.