A Family’s Old and New Heritage

2

September 25, 2006

A Family’s Old and New Heritage

“Everyday Use” begins with Mama and her youngest daughter, Maggie, awaiting the arrival of Mama’s eldest daughter, Dee, at their family home. Within the second paragraph of the story, the reader is given a harsh perspective of Maggie’s personality and perception of her older sister; Maggie is “homely and ashamed of the burn scars... eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that ‘no’ is a word the world never learned to say to her” (106). Alice Walker utilizes Mama's point of view, as well as Mama’s flashbacks in time, to convey one family's conflicting views regarding heritage and tradition.

Because the reader is limited solely to Mama’s first person point of view and her own descriptive memories regarding Dee’s past, the idea of her family’s cultural heritage is presented in such a way as to have the reader side with Mama at the conclusion of the story. Mama contrasts and compares Dee with Maggie. Dee is described as “the child who has ‘made it’” (106), while Maggie is pitifully compared with a lame animal; “have you ever seen a lame animal... sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this... ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground” (107). Dee is strong, sure of herself, has her own style, has big goals set in place for herself and eventually is sent off to college. However, Dee did not really maintain strong friendships, she more than likely chased them all off with her “faultfinding power” (109). Mama states she herself did not have an education; her school just closed down. “Don’t ask me why,” she says, “in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they did now” (108). Maggie seems to humbly understand her own station in her life and within her family, she is to marry John Thomas and live a quiet, simple life.

When Dee arrives at the family home, Maggie and Mama are surprised to see Dee accompanied with a man with hair seemingly everywhere and notice that Dee is dressed in bright colors and has let her own hair “stand straight up like the wool on a sheep” (109). Mama and Maggie are presented with an additional shock when Dee announces she has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. When questioned about the name change, Dee simply answers that ‘Dee’ is “’dead... I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me’” (110). Mama is quick to point out that Dee was not named after the white “oppressors”, but she was named after individuals within their own family. Dee does not seem impressed. While Mama attempts to trace the history of the name, Dee’s new name, Wangero, appears to Dee more culturally acceptable. The name Wangero more than likely is a traditional African name. It seems Dee wishes to forget her family’s recently oppressed past, and delve even further into their roots.

What once Dee shunned, she has now found a new appreciation for. In the past, one of the family’s first homes was burned down while Dee stood firmly nearby and stared at the flames. Mama states that Dee really had “hated the house” (107) and the reader is led to wonder if perhaps Dee might have set fire to her own home. Now that Dee, or Wangero, has come back to visit Mama and Maggie at their current home, she delights in all of the home furnishings. Dee asks Mama for the churn top as well as the dasher; items that are still in use at the home. The fact that Dee had no idea who “whittled” the dasher, that Maggie had to answer the question Dee’s companion brought up, effectively portrays the two different senses of heritage and values with their family. Next, the reader learns that while Mama and Maggie have been using the churn and the dasher for the purposes they were created for, Dee wishes to retain the items as decoration, pieces of art. For a moment, Mama pauses over the dasher, noticing that “you didn’t even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood” (111). She is recognizing the item’s use and remembering who whittled it and who used it. Now, Dee just wants them for table decorations. Dee wants to show off her family’s heritage.

This idea of Dee wishing to surround herself with her family’s past, but in a current and artistic sense, is further exemplified when Dee searches through Mama’s trunk and comes across some old family quilts. Now the reader is subjected to the tension and conflict of Mama and Maggie and their simple, hard-working tradition versus Dee’s