The Mother-Daughter Relationship In Everyday Use By Alice Walker

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In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” is about a girl named Dee that is going to college and she comes home once in awhile. When she goes home she expects her mom and Maggie to give her almost anything she wants. Dee also changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo because she was trying to get into her heritage and she wanted her mom’s churn top that her Uncle Buddy hand carved and then she wanted her grandma and Aunts hand stitched quilts but her mom wouldn’t let her have those because she told Maggie she could have them when she gets married. In “Everyday Use” is mostly about heritage, but it also has another meaning which is about the mother-daughter relationship. How does the mother-daughter relationship help play a role …show more content…

It is what a true mother-daughter bond is supposed to be like. When Dee and the mom were arguing over the quilts the narrator said “like somebody used to never winning anything, or having reserved for her,” which is something that mama has a favorite daughter and she lets Dee have whatever she wants without letting Maggie have anything. It seems like mama wants Dee to be happy when she comes down so she will want to come home. Mama even was going to call her by her new name instead of not going to she tried to because it comes off as Dee is her favorite daughter which is why their mother-daughter relationship is different from Maggie 's and mama’s relationship. Even when Dee took what she wanted like when she just went through mama’s things without asking her. That 's something that only a favorite daughter or someone with a very good mother-daughter relationship would do. This story has a lot of other things in it besides the mother-daughter bond, Wbut how the mother-daughter bond affects the way heritage in the story. In Jennifer Martins report The Quilt Threads Together Sisterhood, Empowerment And Nature In Alice Walker 's The Color Purple And "Everyday Use, she says “explore the power of the quilt for a variety of African American women,” which could mean who ever gets the quilts will be more in touched with her mother and with her heritage because quilts can show a lot about a person 's heritage ( Martin …show more content…

Wangero is some that just started liking her family heritage and things sence she just came into her family heritage that she should get anything that she wants from her mom. In David Cowart essay Heritage and Deracination in Walker 's “Everyday Use” he says, “Only by remaining in touch with a proximate history and immediate cultural reality can one lay claim to the quilts.” which is saying that Maggie does not stay in touch with her history or cultural even through she is there with her mom everyday(Cowart 171-72). When Wangero comes back with her boyfriend, she acts like she 's better than them because she found her heritage and she lost what is important to them the mother-daughter relationship. In another source it say “Dee obviously holds a central place in Mama’s world,” so her central place is the reason why all the stuff that she wants she gets especially things that hold heritage value(Susan Farrell 180). The mother-daughter bond that she shares with Wangero is much more special and that bond with her mom should mean more to her then the quilts or anything else with any type of history

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