Everyday Use
Does this story suggest that there is a personal price for social change- even change for the better? Explain.
Integration and Knowledge and Ideas
Integration and Knowledge and Ideas
Dee is dismayed that Maggie and her mother would use the quilts everyday, despite their functionality. Dee views the quilts as remnants of a culture that is dying or already dead. Note Alice Walker’s use of both Dee’s given name and her name of reinvention. In this moment, Dee is not Dee, but Wangero - she ceases to understand the heritage in her hands. Dee rejects factory made quilts that Mama offers her: she cannot exploit them. For Mama, the quilts represent both a practical and emotional consciousness that should remain above Dee’s manipulation. Dee holds the desire desire to be a part of a world she was not born into:this is what social change means to Dee. For Mama it is a rejection of her own heritage.