Relationship Between A Mother And A Daughter In Alice Walker's Everyday Use

A relationship between a mother and a daughter is very difficult to maintain. In the story of "Everyday Use", Mama tells her story of her two different daughters. She explains the dissimilarity of Dee, the oldest daughter who is in college and Maggie, the daughter who remains at home. She tells the story of her two daughters while waiting for Dee 's arrival from college. She describes how different they are and in their storytelling, you can tell their differences. Dee has broken away from her family and has adopted a life on her own, even having a partner by the name of Hakeem-a-barber and changing her name from Dee to Wangero, even though she was named after her Aunt Dee. Dee forgot about her culture and wants the family quilt for the having it as part of the trend. Maggie

Mama sees that is a part of her heritage as well and wants the quilt to belong to her daughters, that she loves so much. But she would want the quilt to belong to one person that would treasure the quilt as much as she did and the rest of her descendants did. Alice Walker illustrates the differing views and wants the audience to see how much the quilt means and how much heritage and family should mean an individual whether they have "left the nest" or not. Alice Walker wants the audience to side with Maggie and Mama as the two of them value their family and the family valuable that Dee only sees as a trend statement or a new trend in her generation. The title, "Everyday Use", is important to the story as to how the quilt is seen for the characters and how the writer wants the reader to see it as well. The quilt is seen as an element for "everyday use", but the use and value of it are different for the differing sisters. To Maggie, she values the quilt as an "everyday use" because to her it represents her family and who she is and so it is used as an everyday heirloom to remind her where she came from and who she