Lost Heritage in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"
By contrasting the family characters in 'Everyday Use,'
Walker illustrates the mistake by some of placing the
significance of heritage solely in material objects. Walker
presents Mama and Maggie, the younger daughter, as an example
that heritage in both knowledge and form passes from one
generation to another through a learning and experience
connection. However, by a broken connection, Dee, the older
daughter, represents a misconception of heritage as material.
During Dee's visit to …
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…not the knowledge and
history behind the items. Yet, Mama does know the knowledge and
history and knows that Maggie does too. Ironically, Dee
criticizes Mama for not understanding heritage when, in fact, Dee
fails to really understand heritage. Dee mistakenly places
heritage wholly in what she owns, not what she knows.
Works Cited
Walker, Alice. 'Everyday Use.' Literature: Reading, Reacting,
Writing. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Fort
Worth: Harcourt, 1994. 288-295.
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