Everyday Use By Alice Walker African Heritage Essay

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“Everyday Use” is a short story by Alice Walker in which a girl named Dee reclaims her African heritage after marrying a Muslim man Hakim-a-barber. This story determines how important a mother daughter bond is. It stresses the important of spiritual connectedness between families such as mother, daughter and sister. The main characters in this story are mom, Maggie and Dee who express their stories by showing the values of various things in their lives. In this essay, I will display several conflicts made by the author such as mother daughter bond, claiming the African Heritage, and enjoying the heritage by explaining the value of people and objects. The mother-daughter bond of Maggie and her mom has been explained very effectively in this …show more content…

Heritage is a practice of traditions that is passed on from one generation to another. Traditions are important part of various cultures including the African culture. Heritage is a very fundamental part of African people’s lives. They are represented by their culture and traditions. In addition, in this story importance of African heritage is shown when Dee reclaims her traditions when she gets married to a Muslim man. This comes as a surprise for Dee’s mother as she used to hate these traditions in her childhood. The relationship between Dee and her mother was a complicated one as she was apart from her most of her life. When Dee came back she really appreciated the work of her culture and forced her family to let her use the quilts to display them as a unique art work. Dee saw historical values in those quilts and appreciated the work that was hand stitched. But since the family was reserved and were not used to displaying their talent to others, the mother became rebellious and wanted to give it to her sister Maggie who has been with her for all these years while being suppressed in their

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