Alice Walker is an African American woman who has written many poets and literature. One of her well-known short stories, “Everyday Use” is based on social issues which take place in the early 1970s. At that time, where African Americans were facing a difficulty of holding on their heritage while moving forward. The literature is in first-person narrated by Mama about her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. Walker created the two characters to show the sister’s different expression of their heritage. Maggie and Dee came from the same environment, yet they have more differences than similarities.
First, Maggie and Dee have been expressed to be opposites of each other. It’s clear that the two were raised by Mama in the same household. Maggie and Dee are similar in a way, but they do share some differences in characteristics. Walker introduces Maggie as a shy, dark complexion girl who has low self-esteem due to her burn
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Both the characters manage to achieve this but in opposite ways. Maggie embraces her family heritage by understanding where she came from. She has learned skills such as quilting which seem to have been passed down from generation to generation. This is her way of showing that she can keep her family’s culture and heritage alive. In addition, she knows who her relatives were and what items they created in the household. On the other hand, Dee embraces her African heritage instead. While this is an important part of her identity, she is forgetting her family’s culture and where she came from. Dee even changes her name to “Wangero” and explains “couldn’t bear.... being named after the people who oppress me.” Despite the fact, her name is a family name that has been passed down through the generations. Throughout the story, it does not indicate whether Dee knows the skills of her family. Yet, it does appear that she is not interested in learning the skills nor who crafted