Family Threads and Everyday Use

A detailed Summary of Family Threads and Everyday Use

By contrasting family members in “Everyday Use”, Alice Walker illustrates the importance of understanding our present life in relation to the traditions of our own people and culture. While the story clearly endorses Mama’s functional and unsophisticated perspective on heritage over Dee’s misplaced reverence for material goods, it does not condemn Dee’s struggle to move beyond the limits of her impoverished youth. The conflict between Mama and Maggie, the younger sister, and Dee, the older sister, stems from the women’s poverty-stricken past and continues to stretch to the present day. As a child, Dee had always “wanted nice things.” (Walker, 2) She was unsatisfied with her family’s simple life and rural home in the deep south and yearned for an education and emigration from her limited life at home. Her excellent grades, the kindness of the local church and the diligence of her mother won her a scholarship to a better school in a different town. She would read to her crudely educated mother and sister “forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice.” (Walker, 2) Dee’s inten

The much-disputed quilts symbolize the Johnson family’s (as well as the Walker’s family) history. Quilted by two generations, they contain remnants of fabric from the past, including a scrap of Great Grandpa Ezra’s Civil War uniform. The argument over the quilts epitomizes the black women's dilemma in confronting the future. After Mama gives Maggie the quilts, Dee says, “You just don’t understand . . .Your heritage” (Walker, 9). Dee believes heritage to be as tangible as a quilt on the wall or a quaint butter churn in the alcove. She knows the items are hand-made but is unaware of the knowledge and history behind them. Both Mama and Maggie know the traditions and history behind the artifacts and live them. They put their ancestor’s memories and traditions to everyday use. The story clarifies Dee’s confusion about her heritage from both her immediate family and the larger black tradition. Maggie may ruin the quilts by using them in the way they were intended, but she can continue the tradition by creating her own quilts and teaching her daughters the skill.

se desire for an education and a better life isolated her from family and consequently, from her family’s heritage. Mama and Maggie, however, never left their family’s traditions. Mama is a hard-working, strong woman like her mother and grandmother before her, while Maggie lives her families past, cherishing the memories and rem

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Approximate Word count = 985
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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