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Examples Of Maggie Can T Appreciate The Quilts

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After Wangero asks for the quilts for the first time, Mama shares that she promised to give them to Maggie at her wedding. Upset by this response, Wangero quickly attempts to convince her mother that Maggie isn't worthy of having the quilts. In paragraph 12, Wangero claims “maggie can't appreciate the quilts” and “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” She was trying to appeal to her mother's love and attachment to the quilts. She wanted to explain to her mother that if she gave maggie the quilts, they would get ruined so instead she should let Wangero have them so they could be preserved. This attempt to persuade her mom failed because Wangero didn't understand her mother's desire for the quilt. In paragraph 13, her mother says that she had been hanging on them for long enough and wants Maggie to get use out of them. Wangero doesn’t view it the same way and consequentially doesn't persuade her mother to give her the quilts. …show more content…

It doesn't matter if they get ruined because it's not the quilts themselves that matter it’s the memories that are tied to the quilts. Mama doesn't want to give Wangero the quilts because she cares more about the specific quilts than the memories and history behind them. In paragraph 16 she says “You don't understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts” She is so set on having those specific quilts that she's overlooking the actual meaning. Mama doesn't want them to be display pieces she wants them to be used and

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The ways Wangero fails to show why this is effective. In the story, the mother decides to give Maggie the quilts anyways (Walker 22). This is done for many reasons, but the main one is the difference in their status. From the descriptions we get of them earlier in the chapter, we can infer that Wangero is more of a white-collar type of person, and her mother is a blue-collar, working-class woman. We also see that Maggie is aligned with her mother’s status.

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729 Words | 3 Pages

Maggie and her mother in, “Everyday Use” display the correct way to appreciate the greatness within a quilt. Acosta writes as if she was proving that the past is the past and needs to be experienced. Dee in, “Everyday Use” depicts a person who is just trying to use their heritage as a conversation starter or just to show off. In that way also showing that the education does not further you in the appreciation of your roots. Acosta discounts this in a way due to her saying that as she awoke, she wondered how the quilt was stitched.

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622 Words | 3 Pages

Dee (Wangero) tries to convince her mother that the quilts are much too important to be used, saying, “But they’re priceless!” She then attempts to state that she would take amazing care and would hang the quilts, ‘...as if it were the only thing you could do with quilts.’ Here, she tries to use the persuasive mood of concern, trying to draw concern out of her mother for how the quilts should be cared for. Dee (Wangero) knows that her mother cares about the quilts and wants the best for them, but they have clashing views on how that happens, and Dee (Wangero) tries to tip her mother toward her perspective through appealing to her sense of worry on what could happen to the quilts since they seem to be the only connection presented to their

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465 Words | 2 Pages

She also shows that she does not recognise or understand the heritage and the past of the quilts as she has rejected her own family's past, our past together as a family,Maggie and I. In her attempt to embrace her African roots. Therefore, considering how the quilts are such an essential relic of Our history, it is perfectly right that they be given to Maggie.

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634 Words | 3 Pages

(Pg.57, lines 210-211) It is considered one of the main conflicts because of how valuable the quilts are to Maggie and

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818 Words | 4 Pages

Mama, Dee, and Maggie do not have the most ideal family relationship, but Maggie and Mama are creating a stronger bond after Maggie told Mama Dee can have the quilts because she can “’member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (Walker 153). Not only does Maggie cherish the quilts because of their background, but she also knows how to quilt, thus giving her the ability to carry on that heritage. This makes Mama realize Maggie is

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1861 Words | 8 Pages

Mama ultimately decides that she wants to keep the quilts for their sentimental value and to pass them down to future generations. Mama makes an effort to counteroffer and convince Dee to take some other quilts that have less sentimental value. Dee declines, “No, I don't want those. They are stitched around the borders by machine,” and instead asks for “pieces of dresses Grandma used to wear,” (Walker 320). Her decision to keep them symbolizes her desire to maintain the family’s traditions and protect their history.

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1150 Words | 5 Pages

Walker uses the identity of a quilt to symbolize Dee’s family history, representing her family’s African American heritage. Dee chooses to see the quilt as art rather than use it as it is meant to function. On the other hand, Maggie and her mother believe the quilt represents something more on a personal level. The ancient quilt is described as having “scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago, bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts…” showing the cultural heritage the quilt signified (Walker, pg. 5). The quilt represents family history and connection to the family’s older generations.

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1204 Words | 5 Pages

Dee was very upset about this as she knew that maggie would end up ruining them. " Maggie can't appreciate these quilts", she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use." (Walker). The conflict was resolved when Mama decided to give the quilts to Maggie because they were still close as mother and daughter and she worked harder for them.

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1032 Words | 5 Pages

This shows that Maggie views the quilts as a way of remembering her deceased grandmother. It’s not as much about the physical looks of the quilt, but more about them being a passed down memento from her grandmother. In addition, Sarnowski states, “Losing the quilts would not extinguish or reduce Maggie’s sense of heritage, but it would rob her sense of heritage of an affirming token” (Sarnowski 280). Maggie knows what her heritage is and does not necessarily need the quilts to define it. She is happy with the life she lives and although she would be losing this “affirming token” she would still know where she comes

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1338 Words | 6 Pages

“Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts! She said. “she’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” (walker). This shows that dee really wants the quilts but not for the reason her mother wants.

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658 Words | 3 Pages

With a sweet tone of her voice, Wangero attempts to move her mom to recognize how much she wants Grandma’s old quilts for a historical symbol of the culture and her ancestors. One of the times Wangero emphasized the importance of keeping the essence of the past through objects from the past is when she reminded her mother about Grandma’s old handmade quilts; which could also be related to some type of emotional attachment and memories with family members. Ultimately, Walker is focusing on persuasion through the use of key points that might suggest it to the target character to want or feel more like doing something in the favor of the character that wants to get that, she shows this through Wangero’s attempts for getting her mother to give her the quilts, personally if you want to advance or get something from a relationship with anyone- which benefits both of the persons, persuasion can be a good

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357 Words | 2 Pages

Wangero starts her argument for getting the quilts by speaking “sweet as a bird.” She is alluding that she wants the quilts by changing her demeanor and talking

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1149 Words | 5 Pages

This new outlook on her life caused Dee to place different values on the items with which she had grown up. She wanted to take the items as things to put on display like art hanging on a wall. Dee even wanted the cherished quilts to “hang them” (Walker, 1973) instead of using them as blankets. As she saw it, to use the quilts for their original purpose would destroy them, or as she said, “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they 'd be in rags” (Walker, 1973).

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1561 Words | 7 Pages

As she looks at her quilts, Mama remembers that a certain patch came from her grandfather's paisley shirts, that some pieces came from dresses that Grandma Dee wore 50 years earlier, and even that there was a very small piece of her great-grandfather's Civil War uniform. From this, we can all see how and why they mean so much to her. To Dee, the quilts are a quaint "primitive" art. To Mama and Maggie, they represent more than that. They are family memories, very personal and very special mementos of loved ones who are gone.

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