Without the past, people would not know how to improve the future. However, many people take this too far and reject their past. They forget where they came from and become someone unrecognizable. In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, her character Dee claims to appreciate her heritage, but in reality, she is the one who misunderstands it the most. Truly, her mother and sister, Maggie, are the ones who understand their heritage because they use relics of their past everyday. Through her name change, obsession with appearance, and infatuation with family heirlooms, Alice Walker shows clearly that Dee is, in fact, the one who does not understand her heritage.
One way Dee shows how she does not understand her heritage is through her name change. …show more content…
When she arrives at her mother’s house, she is dressed in full african attire. She is wearing a “dress so loud it hurts [her mother’s] eyes” that has “yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun” (Walker 317). By wearing this obnoxious dress, Dee shows how she does not understand her heritage because she never knew anyone that far back in her family when they still wore clothes like that. Ironically, with the way she dresses, Dee’s “attempt to become an african” makes her look like a “phony” (Cowart 172). Dee also rejects her heritage because she hates the way her family lives. Her mother mentions how Dee will want to “tear [their house] down” when she sees it, and how she would visit them but never bring her friends (Walker 317). Dee’s hatred of her childhood home illustrates how she does not appreciate her past. Dee further shows how she does not understand her heritage because she used to hate her home, but because “it [became] fashionable to have rural, poverty-stricken roots, Dee wants a record of her own humble beginnings,” so she is running around taking pictures of her house (Farrell 3). Dee’s obsession with outward appearances supports how she is the one who does not understand her