The character Dee walker,alice everyday use - Essay Example

Everyday Use: Dee’s Rejection of her Heritage. Alice Walker’s evocative short story, Everyday Use, centers round a Mother, who is the narrator, and her two daughters, Maggie and Dee. Walker skillfully uses the contrasting appearances, personalities and attitudes of the two girls to give a telling commentary on what constitutes genuine heritage. Dee’s external appearance gives the impression that she is proud of her heritage, but she has actually rejected her roots and exhibits her heritage only as an exotic accessory to her life.

Dee’s physical appearance is contrived to give the impression that she is consciously proud of her heritage. She is the successful daughter, “the child who has made it” (Walker, Para. 3) and carved a place for herself in the outside world. Her style of dress, in striking shades of yellow and orange, ethnic jewelry and hairstyle all deliberately accentuate her African heritage and call out loudly for attention. They constitute her apparently defiant statement of identity. Dee’s use of the Swahili style of greeting, “Wasuzo-Teano” (Walker, Para. 21), and her adoption of the name, “Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo” are also meant to reinforce her assertion of her roots.

Dee’s veneer of pride in her heritage is like her “sunglasses which hid everything” (Walker, Para. 82). A deeper study of Dee’s personality reveals that she has actually rejected her roots. “She had hated” (Walker, Para. 10) her childhood home. Her attitude towards her mother and sister is marked by criticism and condescension. Dee takes pictures of them as if they were curiosities and includes the house and the cow, but not herself. She does not see herself as a part of their world.

Her change of name is again a rejection of her lineage. The name Dee, which has passed down to her through generations of her family, is more a genuine part of her heritage than the affected African name she has adopted. Her rejection of her past is irrevocably made by her statement about the old Dee: “She’s dead” (Walker, Para. 27). Dee covets the churner top and dasher, not as treasured parts of her past life, but as pretentious artistic curios to be flaunted as exotic ornaments. Likewise, her estimation of the quilts, “they’re priceless!

” (Walker, Para. 52) is not based on the value of her love for the grandmother and the aunt who made them, but on their considerable monetary value as antiques, which will make a striking fashion statement. Dee does not know who made the dasher, nor does she know how to quilt. Unlike her sister Maggie, who will use the quilts, which are symbolic of their heritage, as intimate objects of “Everyday Use,” Dee will keep them as detached works of art, hanging out of reach on cold, distant walls.

Dee’s wears her identity as a badge of defiance, rather than as a comfortable, treasured part of her personality. Dee’s accusation of her mother and sister, “You just don’t understand --- your heritage” (Walker, Para. 79-81), could more appropriately be directed towards herself. Dee’s rejection of her family and her condescension towards their way of life is an unequivocal repudiation of her heritage. It is “Everyday Use” which will nurture a true heritage, made up of real people, and ensure that it is preserved and passed on to posterity.

It is Maggie who is the true guardian of their heritage and not Dee, despite her superficial championing of her roots.