Walker’s Everyday Use was an anthologized story composed during the late twentieth century period, specifically in 1973, and tells a story of the dilemma associated with African Americans who in their struggle to escape poverty and prejudice, risk the abolition of the cultural heritage and traditions that defined them. The story primarily hinges on two essential characters, Mama and her daughter, Dee, whom the author uses to demonstrate the essence of preserving the Afro-American heritage and passing its cultural traditions from one generation to another through the use of past artefacts that represent the family’s history. In the story, Dee visits his family’s home and gains interest in specific items of historical and cultural significance, including the quilts and the butter churn. However, after the family reunion between Dee and Mama, both characters develop differing views concerning the meaning of the family’s cultural heritage based on their perceptions concerning the quits and the butter churn. The objective of this essay includes defending Mama’s beliefs concerning the use of the artefacts desired by her daughter, which define and identify the true meaning of the Afro-American heritage, traditions and customs. In this context, this essay contends that in Alice’s Everyday Use Mama’s beliefs that the items desired by her daughter, specifically the butter churn and the quilts should be respected as artefacts that carry the memory of the ancestral traditions of the family and utilized daily instead of being considered as priceless artefacts that can be modified to suit Dee’s desires.
Specifically, Mama’s belief that the butter churn should be centred and valued in their memory as a symbolic representation of the family’s cultural heritage and traditions is justified because the artefact signifies a cultural identity of the characters, something Dee is unable to comprehend. In particular, cultural heritage mainly involves important artefacts, objects, or traditional activities that have diversified value systems and norms that are passed along from one generation to another to allow current generations to understand their identities, where they come from and how they should act or behave within the contemporary society. Mama mainly believes that the butter churn should be respected and maintained as a memory that signifies the family’s heritage since it possesses important ancestral meaning that defines the family’s origin and identity. Specifically, mama acknowledges that the butter churn was whittled by Billie from a beautiful yellow tree “where Big Dee and Stash had lived” (Walker 32). In this context, mama believes that the churn is part of her family’s history and wishes it to be embedded in the memory of her daughter Dee. However, Dee desires this object, which she intends to use for decorating her alcove tabletop. Therefore, while Mama understands and appreciates the act of passing down cultural traditions from one generation to another, Dee does not understand the symbolic meaning of the butter churn as an essential artefact that signifies her family’s traditional heritage, and identity of the Afro-American culture.
Another important artefact that justifies Mama’s belief in the true meaning of the Afro-American cultural heritage includes the quilts that symbolize family heritage putting them to use daily. Precisely, when Mama gives Dee the old quilts to her daughter, Dee, expresses that the quilts are generally priceless and that she desires to hang them on her home’s wall. However, Mama insists that before piecing together the quits, they were initially “pieced by Grandma Dee, and then Big Dee” (Walker 32). This statement illustrates the importance of using the quilts daily as one way of learning and passing down the family’s cultural practices from one generation to another. Precisely, the Afro-American culture of the time when the story was composed primarily involved quilting that mothers often passed down to their daughters, similar to Mama’s desire to ensure her daughter puts the quilts to everyday use.
The Afro-American culture has been traditionally characterized by a value system that involves quilting as an experience or an activity passed down to generations over the past centuries (Whitsitt 443). However, for Dee, the quilts are a mere representation of priceless items that should be hung on the wall of her home. In particular, according to the Piecing and Writing essay composed by Elaine Showalter, the quilts symbolize a wiped-out cultural practice that the contemporary generations have a doubtful and troubled appreciation of its true meaning (Showalter 228). Similarly, Dee does not understand or appreciate the meaning of the quilts or their capacity to bridge the gap between her past ancestral and cultural identity. One of the important aspects of heritage includes linking the past ancestral culture with the present by engaging in activities that were constantly engaged by ancestors, including great-grandparents and grandparents. Therefore, Mama is an essential character who attempts to bridge the gap of family heritage between Dee and her ancestors by insisting on the daily utilization of the quilts, even though Dee does not appreciate this fact.
In conclusion, this essay defends Mama’s beliefs that the items her daughter desires are primarily meant for preserving and maintaining the Afro-American cultural heritage that was passed down between generations. Specifically, the artefact signifies a cultural identity of the characters, something Dee is unable to comprehend and one which Mama strongly emphasises. Additionally, this essay demonstrates that while artefacts that represent a given cultural tradition are not merely priceless items as perceived by Dee, but essential symbolic objects that when put into use daily can help generations learn about their ancestral traditions and cultural identity.
Works Cited
Showalter, Elaine. “Piecing and writing: The poetics of gender, ed. MILLER, Nancy K.” 1986: 222–247.
Walker, Alice. Everyday use. Rutgers University Press, 1994.
Whitsitt, Sam. “In spite of it all: a reading of Alice Walker’s” Everyday Use”.” African American Review 34.3 (2000): 443-459.
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