Dee And Maggie example essay topic

In the short story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, the author portrays opposing ideas about one's heritage. Through the eyes of two daughters, Dee and Maggie, who have chosen to live their lives in very different manners, the reader can choose which character to identify most with by judging what is really important in one's life. In Dee's case, she goes out to make all that can of herself while leaving her past behind, in comparison to Maggie, who stays back with her roots and makes the most out of the surroundings that she has been placed in. Through the use of symbolism, the tangible object of a family heirloom quilt brings out these issues relating to heritage to Mama, and she is able to reasonably decide which of her daughters has a real appreciation for the quilt, and can pass it on to her. Dee and Maggie shed a new light on the actual meaning of heritage through their personality traits, lifestyle decisions, and relationships with specific family members. Although all of the character's views on heritage are expressed, Dee's character is given the more detailed description of ways she strays from her heritage.

From the beginning, Dee despises the home that they live in. When it is destroyed in a fire, her mother wants to ask her, "Why don't you do a dance around the ashes? ", expressing Dee's utter aversion towards the home (Walker 409). Most people take pride in their home and cherish it for all of the memories that it holds for them, but Dee is insensitive to the family's loss. After becoming of age, Dee decides to go to college, where she begins to hold her newly found knowledge against her family because of their lack of it.

This opportunity to go out of her town and see the world gives Dee a taste of a better lifestyle that she wants to become apart of, and leaves her family behind. While Dee is away at college, she denies the quilts that her mother has offered her saying that "they were old-fashioned, and out of style" because she is still longing to separate herself from her family as much as possible (Walker 413). One of the main things that Dee does to distance herself from her family, and tarnish part of her family's tradition is the changing of her name Dee Johnson, to Wang ero Leewanika Kemanjo, because she feels that it comes from "the people that oppressed me" (Walker 411). This act comes to Mama as a shock because of the thought that was placed into the choosing of that name. Mama explains to Dee that she can probably trace the passing of that name to before the Civil War. Obviously, Dee's family is not who is actually oppressing her.

Dee oppresses herself in many ways by the limitations that she puts on herself with her family and new lifestyle. All of the choices she decides, to make herself a more well rounded person, to better fit into society, end up making her a deplorable person because of the harm that it has on her family. Literary critic Mary Helen Washington believes Dee is an example of a stereotypical "assimilated women who alienates them self from their roots, and cuts them self off from real contact with their own people and their inner self" (22). This concept explains why Dee rarely makes trips home, and shows that she is really disowning a part of herself by not accepting her family and past. On the other hand, the younger of the daughters, Maggie, is portrayed as a more homely and loyal daughter who is deeply in touch with her heritage. On a personal level, Maggie does not contain the strong willed personality of her sister, but is very content with her family's past, and the direction that her life is taking.

Maggie is so accustomed to her strong family ties and the family history that surrounds her everyday in the house, that it is not a priority to have the quilts passed along to her. She does not need a tangible object to hold on to as her past. Mama knew that "it was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt herself", and that it is something she can hold within her forever (Walker 413). Maggie's character carries around all of her family's past, including the strife and troubles that they have been through. Critic David Cowart believes that "Maggie represents black women who must suffer while the occasional lucky sister escapes the ghetto", comparing her modest lifestyle to Dee's more outgoing one (172). Mama portrays Maggie as a girl who "will stand hopelessly... homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs" from the fire, and who feels inferior to Dee (Walker 408).

Even though she is never in competition with Dee, Maggie knows that Dee always gets her way, so Maggie does not anticipate receiving the quilts. She does not need them to recognize her heritage. From all of the vivid descriptions used to describe Dee and Maggie, it is obvious that Maggie and Mama's perspective of heritage is more respectable than that of Dee's, because of the way that Dee acts as though she is ashamed of it. It is ironic that Dee wants the family quilts so badly, when in many ways she tries to disown her family in attempts to lose her heritage. Washington argues that Dee is a character who "is awakened to life by a powerful political force... and puts up a consequent effort to reintegrate themselves into their culture to rediscover its value"; which explains her actions when she comes back for her family items only when it seems fashionable to display them (23). Maggie and Mama both know that a true appreciation of one's heritage comes from learning their family history and about personal experiences.

Dee fails to realize that it is about knowledge and not just material items, which makes her come across as selfish and disrespectful towards her family. She has spent almost all of her life trying to deny where she has come from. In reality, Dee has always held the best part of her heritage within her, but tried to push it away. It lies with her memories, her name, and with her still existing family, all of the things that she manages to block out of her life. Maggie and Mama prove that heritage is not only about how far a person has come, but knowing where they come from.

Throughout the story, the family conflict that arises focuses directly on the quilts, and who they will be passed along to. However, the quilts are more than old family material items beacuse they symbolize who they are. Critic Trudger Harris claims that Walker portrays the quilts "as the folk culture that is an inseparable part of the black folk at any level- the college bred and the illiterate black are equal in their heritage... it can never be erased", which is the aspect that Dee does not see (8). Dee fails to realize that the quilts are not only made by her ancestors, but that there is a story behind all of the pieces that make up the quilt. It would be ignorant of her to retain the quilts for herself, and not be able to pass along the stories, along with the quilts.

Another important aspect of passing the quilts along to Maggie is that she is the daughter who appreciates their true value; therefore, being the one who is more likely to add on to the quilts to further expand their heritage. Dee, on the other hand, does not even know how to quilt. After Mama makes the final decision that the quilts will go to Maggie, Dee replies back that Maggie would "probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use", when actually that is the way that one's heritage should be incorporated into one's everyday lifestyle (Walker 413). Finally, at the end of the story Dee is faced with having to go back to her home empty handed, not having gotten what she has come for. Upset because she has always gotten what she wanted, Dee states, "It's really a new day for us.

But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it", trying to make both Mama and Maggie inferior to her, as though they really have no grasp on their own heritage (Walker 413). However, Maggie and Mama are indifferent to her rude remark. Maggie smiles though, in a way that lets the reader know that she has finally found a place in her mother's heart. She does not feel as though she has lost out to Dee, but rather that Dee is the one missing out, because she has no concept of what really matters in life. Maggie and Mama do not have to go out and try to prove to the world how far they have come and cover up for their past like Dee.

A sense of heritage is the best gift that anyone could ever be given. Unfortunately for Dee, she is looking for material objects to fill that space in her that she has more than once denied. The story makes it apparent that their are different ways to interpret one's heritage. For those people who are more secure with who they are, heritage is something that they can pride themselves on and not be ashamed of because of where they came from. Heritage is a person's undeniable past that they carry around with them everyday, it cannot be found in a mere tangible object.