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What Is The Meaning Of Everyday Use By Alice Walker Define Heritage

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Heritage in “Everyday Use”
Heritage means something different to everyone, since most of everyone comes from a different background. Everyone has different opinions on heritage and how it should be preserved. In “Everyday Use” written by Alice Walker, it shows what heritage means too both Mama and Dee, how they both have different ways they would like to preserve their heritage, whether heritage is still considered important, and how different they are Dee compared to Mama and Maggie.
Heritage means different things to both Mama and Dee. To Mama heritage is a way to live, she still prefers to do things the same way as her heritage. Mama was taught to “kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man” (Walker 1). It’s something that her ancestors …show more content…

It shows that to Mama and Maggie that heritage is something you learn and incorporate into your daily life. While Dee thinks heritage is just something you leave in the past while she tries to embrace the future. Mama and Dee also have different opinions on the best way to persevere their heritage. Mama prefers to pass down the stories of their heritage and keep using the tools like the butter churn instead of putting them up. Dee would like to put the family heirlooms so that no one can use them to keep them from getting wrecked. The story also shows that Mama and Maggie find that it is important to learn and know your history, but Dee does not find it as important until after she comes home from school and even when she comes back from school, she does not appreciate the history of the items for what they are. She would rather put them on display in her home in the city, so it looks like she is aware of her heritage. All three of them are very different too each other, but Mama and Maggie have the most similar characteristics. They value where they’ve come from in history and are okay with living the simple life that they are living. On the other hand, Dee is the opposite of the other two. Dee is very materialistic and thought highly of herself. She knew she was going to leave her small simple home life for something better. Dee was confident in everything she did in life. She wasn’t interested in learning the family heritage because she didn’t think it would ever come in use for

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