...understanding, our character has been distorted; when we have been handed empty inspirational appellations, then stuck in farthest corner” (pg2). In the first part of this quote, Walker is trying to emphasize that the process of trying to be understood by others comes at a cost of losing sight of the individuals identify, and this is what occurred to Dee. Catch up in her efforts to fulfill the image of being African American, Dee became blind to her true heritage. Playing the part of being African American resulted in Dee’s inability to recognize the significance of the quilts and her roots. Unlike Dee, Maggie was very aware of her heritage and the significance behind of the quilts. In the second part of the quote, Walker explains that obtaining an object that possesses great value without knowing its importance makes things worse. As a matter of fact, it makes you unseen. Although Maggie decided it was okay for Dee to take the quilts, it's clear that she understands that Dee doesn't...
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...the word legacy conveys important personal stories, values, principles and beliefs. For others, legacy means leaving valuables, or wealth. And for others legacy means influences that impacts and endows causes. How one may decided to leave a legacy for others to know what was important to them to remember, honor or appreciate about one’s life is truly up to each individual. For Momma in the short story "Everyday Use", her legacy came in the form of an heirloom, quilts that were left behind by her mother. When you leave behind your most prized possession...
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...Chris Themes of Everyday Use by Alice Walker In the Alice Walker’s story “Everyday Use”, two sisters portray their contrasting family views on what they perceive to be heritage. The idea is that a quilt is a part of this family's history. They aren't just parts of cloth put together to make a blanket. The quilt symbolizes their ancestors' lives and tells a story with every single inch of cloth. Understanding the reasoning of why the author wrote this story is very important; valuing the culture and traditions of your family is extremely meaningful. This is shown by the mother’s thoughts on the quilts, “Both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece about the size of a penny matchbox that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War. (367-368)"In the story, Walker presents Maggie, who is the younger sister, as an example of heritage in terms of passing it on through the generations with knowledge and respect. Maggie unlike her older sister knew how to sew and appreciated personally and emotionally on how much time and effort where put into the quilts whereas Dee sees the quilt valued only for financial and aesthetic reasons. Maggie and Dee have very different ideas about what constitutes their heritage and for Maggie, the family heirlooms are filled with the presence of the people who made and used them. Dee on the other hand is angered...
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...The story of 'Everyday use' is not that complicated. The story goes on with a first-person view of Maggie and Dee’s mother. The story deals with racial issues, values, and family issues and the author effectively communicates what she wants to convey to the reader by using and describing various devices through the story. One of the most important materials that readers have to focus is the quilt, which is it makes an argument between daughters and mother. It is also a symbol of Africa’s traditional heritage from descendant and goes to the next generation. The mother is concerned about whether she will hand the quilt to Maggie or Dee. Eventually, mother gave it to Maggie because mom and Maggie have the same idea of how to use quilt truthfully...
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...In the Dee goes the foot of her mother’s bed and bed, found two quilts made by her aunt, and grandmother. The quilts contain small pieces of garments worn by her grandmother and can be traced all the way back to the Civil War. Dee asks her mother for the quilt, but her mother has already promised them to Maggie when she marries. Dee states that “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” she said. She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use” (Johnson & Thomas 153). Her mother says that she hope that Maggie does use them and how Dee didn’t want to take them when she went to college. Dee saying that they are priceless and should be hung not used (153). Mrs. Johnson see heritage as something that should be practiced everyday and used in everyday life while Dee sees heritage as art and it should be used as decoration of the family history. At the end of the story Dee states that Maggie and Mrs. Johnson don’t know their own heritage which is ironic because it’s Dee who doesn’t. Mrs. Johnson and Maggie know the traditions and history behind the quilts one because she puts her ancestor’s memories to everyday use and hopes that Maggie does the same (Gruesser...
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...In the short story, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, Alice writes a touching and relatable story on how the evolution of tradition affected a relationship between two sisters. She describes the struggles that anyone can encounter while finding their point of view towards their culture. Even though Dee and Maggie were raised under the same household, they are very different. Dee and Maggie are different on how they interpret and express their culture through beliefs, actions and appearance. First of all, Dee and Maggie have different beliefs on the importance of the quilts. The quilts cause a big conflict towards the end due to the interest of both sisters. Maggie and Dee both want the quilts for their keeping. Originally, Mama was going to...
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...characters' contrasting ideas about their heritage and identity. Throughout the story. Dee goes back and forth on being proud and rejecting her heritage. For example, when she decides at dinner that she wants the butter dish, she shows that she respects her heritage because she knows that her uncle carved that with from a tree they used to have. However, she wants it for the wrong reason, saying that she will use it only for decoration. Another example is when she wants the quilts that Mama has. She states that she wants them because of the generations of clothing and effort put into making the quilt, showing her appreciation for her heritage. The fact that she changes her name, though, from Dee to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo disrespects her heritage because "Dee" is a family name that can be traced back many generations. The story is full of symbols: One is the quilt (Whitsitt). The quilt itself is a very meaningful item in the sense that it has history on it; it...
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...Walker utilizes symbolism to highlight the dispute between two different points of view of, or approaches to, the African-American culture, showing that culture and heritage are parts of daily life. Through the use of symbolism, there are three of which I will refer to, one being the quilts, the tangible objects of the family heirloom, the yard, which she emphasis on and its physical characteristics, and then there’s the name changing, when Dee changed her name to a traditional African name, Wangero. The quilts were the most compelling symbol in the story. They signified pieces of living history, documents in fabric that chronicle the lives of the many generations and the struggles, such as war and poverty, which they faced. The quilts served as a testament to the family’s history of pride and trials. With the drawbacks that poverty and lack of education placed on her life, Mama sees her personal history as one of her few treasures. Her house embraces the handicrafts of her extended family. Instead of acquiring a financial inheritance from her ancestors, Mama has been given the quilts. For her, these objects have a sentimental value that Dee, despite claiming her desire to care for and preserve the quilts, is unable to fathom. Mama’s yard represents a private space free of the woes and defects that have permeated Mama’s life. The yard comes into view in the first and last sentences of the story, associating the events and bookending the action. The yard has been precisely prepared...
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...The Symbolism of Quilts Designs used in quilts are not necessarily symmetrically organized; rather the art of quilting reflects an aesthetic understanding by the makers of what the quilt represents for them in their everyday experience. (Barkley-Brown, 1990). The shape of a quilt results from the meaning that the individual quilters give to the pieces that compose it. This art form is known as gumbo ya ya in Creole which means everybody talking at once. (Barkley-Brown, 1990). Alice Walker’s usage of quilts in her short story Everyday Use reflects the importance and significance of a quilt in African-American history. A quilt embodies heritage and personal stories and events; a quilt is similar to a person’s own journey in that each scrap stitched into a quilt represents “a person’s world view [which] is made up of events, circumstances and influences that shape how [she] see[s] and respond[s] to the world.” (Eshbaugh, 2008, August 21). Narrated by the mother of the two main characters, the symbolism of the hand-stitched quilts in Everyday Use represents the conflicts between two sisters who each experience the world and their heritage differently. The story begins with Dee, the eldest daughter, first homecoming since leaving for college. Walker describes Dee as a woman who no one ever told “no.” Dee is well-educated, wears bright colors that accentuates her full-figured body and exudes confidence. However, Dee will never be satisfied in life, and she...
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...complex, materialistic, modern way of life where heritage is valued by its trendiness. While Maggie and Mama, on the contrary, represent the simple practice way of life where culture holds personal substance. Both have different approaches to life and virtually opposite of one another. Dee knows it is okay to want the best and is described as a confident and fearless young woman: “At sixteen she had a style of her own,” and “hesitation was no part of her nature” (Walker 2582). Unlike her mother and her sister, Dee isn’t content with her childhood lifestyle so she worked to change that. This isn’t a negative trait in that her determination pushed her to travel and learn. In opposition, Maggie not only remains in the background as she cowers behind her mother nearly all her life, but she envelops herself with her cultural background. She is...
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...The story “Everyday use” is a story about a family and their relationship and conflicts with each other, written by Alice Walker. Mrs. Johnson is a mother of two daughters, Dee and Maggie. Her and her family does not have the nicest things but she appreciates everything that they do have. Dee who is apparently the older daughter has been sent to August, Georgia where she would attend Augusta State University. They did not have money to send her to school on their own, so the church helped them raised the money. She is the only person in her family to expand their education that far. But before she left to school her family had suffered from the burning of their previous house. The house was entirely burned down leaving Maggie, the younger sister, with burns and scars down her arms and legs that she will never overlook. This made her become uncomfortable with herself causing her to separate from her sister. She is really ashamed with how she looks, so she becomes nervous of being around anyone other than her mother. The burning of the house didn’t seem to bother Dee as much, because she always wanted bigger and better things. Even though they have grown up with each other and face the same consequences, with contrasting the past and present of the two clearly shows that they have grown up to be two very different individuals. . Dee is on her way home from school, So Maggie and Mrs. Johnson welcomes her to a nicely Cleaned yard.” It’s not a yard;...
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...done in collogue, with watercolor and the transparency in the pictures showed the multicultural thread. This next book was not on the list because the library I was using did not have but two of the books I was looking for and was suggested by the librarian – TAR BEACH by FAITH RINGGOLD – this book is a CALDECOTT HONOR BOOK and so endearing to me as I was given a story quilt when I was a child, a way to hand down heritage and family air looms with in a quilt that told a story of your family history. Faith Ringgold uses hers in the illustrations of the boarder in each page along with painted pictures, this is used to tell a story of a girl and her family and how she dreams someday of flying to freedom and going anywhere she wants to and buying factories for her father, a dream to be free of prejudice. Faith preludes to this in the book when she mentions her father cannot join the steel workers’ union because he is half black and half native American. The family lives in Harlem and spends many of evening upon the tar roof with her parents and their friends eating and playing cars while she lies on the story quilt, stares at the stars and dream of flying and owning the city. A great book to discuss with children about adversities others face...
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...Michael Humphrey 2/16/16 Essay 1 Evolution of identity Throughout this section we have talked about culture and identity and how it ties into all of the short readings we have been assigned to read. In this paper I will discuss how ethnicity plays a vital role in culture and identity, and how it shapes the characters throughout each story or poem. All three of my examples will be coming from “A Raisin in the Sun”, by Lorraine Hansberry, “Everyday Use”, by Alice Walker, and “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane”, by Etheridge Knight. “A Raisin in the Sun” is about an African-American family who lives in poverty on the south side of Chicago, in 1959. Back in the day we know that African Americans didn’t have it easy, but how exactly did the fact of being black shape the way they lived and the way they processed things mentally? Walter worked as a chauffeur most of his life, but had dreams of becoming an entrepreneur. He had a vision of opening up a liquor store since he figured no one would ever stop drinking liquor. The problem he had was that he was a thirty-five year old man that had a son that was sleeping in the living room, and all he had to give him was stories about how rich white people lived. Instantly we see traces of how Walters’ current life situation falter his mindset into thinking he needed to be more successful so that his family could look up to him like a role model. At one point in the play Walter and Benny have...
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...216). Trifles, written in the early 1900’s by Susan Glaspell. Glaspell wrote this play during a time of controversial feminist issues. Glaspell wrote "Trifles" to demonstrate the male assumption that women were insignificant members in a male dominated society. Because the men underestimate them, the women are able to prove they are not insignificant. The play opens at the Wright farmhouse where Mr. Wright has been murdered in his sleep. They entered in the house: county attorney, the sheriff, Mrs. Hale, and Mrs. Peters. The men and women have come to investigate the case against Minnie Foster, the wife of Mr. Wright. Most of the stuffs which the male characters supposed to be insignificant objects like the broken bird cage door, the quilt, the dead canary, and the entire kitchen consequentially lead to the solution (Trifles 219). The improper assumptions by men toward women can have dire consequences, as demonstrated in Glaspell's world. Combating these narcissistic assumptions displayed by men can result in a unity among women that can overcome any male caused disrespect and oppression. The title of this drama "Trifles" demonstrates how men had the assumption that woman and their respective actions are seemingly unimportant. The women in this story overcome the men by uniting together against male oppression. Through the story "Trifles" Glaspell is able to bring awareness to the unfortunate conditions women faced, and the sexual inequality they encountered...
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...decide which direction is safe to venture the company and the shareholders and the employees into. Incorporating your moral ethics and values, trying to make a decision that could on one hand be profitable and on the other be possibly be devastating for the company. In order to achieve this goal I would consider the pros and cons, and the effects it could have on employees, the company leadership and the shareholders. Questions to ask oneself are, what are the legal ramifications of paying a foreign based company money to secure the contract. For the author of Moral Choices, explains it in a couple of ways, leaving one enough wiggle room to justify which ever actions is choosen. For myself, the most important aspect of dealing with the situation, are the lives involved the immensity behind this decision could bring trials and...
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