Symbolism In Everyday Use

Using symbolism in a story can help build a story in a lot of ways. In the story “Everyday Use” the author uses symbolism to show is the themes of one struggling over beliefs and value, and also family dynamics and ones’ individual identity. In the story “Everyday Use” Alice walker uses the quilt as a symbol to show the struggle between Maggie, Dee, and Mama. The quilt is also used to show the struggle of cultural values verses cultural beliefs. Through symbolism the readers are able to understand the overall theme of this story.
In the story, we see a lot of struggle of acceptance between Dee, her mother and her sister Maggie. In the story, we see how hard it was for the family to accept Dee’s new transition. Dee had gone away for school which had exposed her to different diverse backgrounds and ethnicity’s. while away Dee, had learned a lot about her African heritage which she embraced a lot more than her mom or her sister could understand. Dee had accepted her accentors past but in the same sense had forgotten about her African-American heritage which her mother held close to her heart. In the story we see how Dees

The issue between Dee and her mother is their unwillingness to accept each other. Dees feel as though by accepting her African roots she is she is also accepting her African-American roots, but Mama felt otherwise. Mama felt that though Dee saw herself as accepting her African American heritage she did not fully undemand what that meant. Dees felt that by wearing African cloths changing her name and was what accepting her heritage meant but what she didn’t see was by her doing these things she was neglecting her own heritage. For Mama heritage meant accepting your family traditions, things that has been used and passed down through