Alice Walker Heritage

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Alice Walker is famous as a poet, feminist, short story writer and a novelist. “Everyday Use” is one of her famous short story in which two sisters (Dee and Maggie) display their different ideas about the value of heritage in their life. The story itself explains “the dilemma of Africans and Americans who in striving to escape prejudice and poverty, risk a terrible deracination, a surrounding from all that has sustained defined them” (Cowart). In the story, Dee is arrogant, ungrateful and selfish whereas Maggie is shy, emotional, strongly attached to her mother and culture. Their mother, Mama is a practical character. The conflict in the story implies sibling rivalry regarding heritage and traditional things and also indicates the importance of heritage in one’s life. “Everyday Use” is set in the early ‘70’s in the Southern…show more content…
Unlike her mother, she has very causal idea and thinking of heritage. Alice Walker uses Dee to symbolise the Black Power Movement. According to Mama, “Dee though… She would always look anyone in the eye… Hesitation was no part of her nature,… She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts… Her eyelids would not flicker for a minute at time…. At sixteen she had a style of her own; and she knew what style was” (Walker, 404). These traits show her as a symbol of Black Power Movement. Moreover, these traits also show that she is aggressive. Apart from symbolising Black Power Movement, she also symbolises misguided black pride. Dee is educated and is aware about racial discrimination. This makes her different from her mother and sister, Maggie and even makes her against the tradition and culture of her own family. She did a lot of research on African background and culture, due to which she changed her name from Dee to Wangero. Dee feels herself that she belongs to higher class and has high status in the society. She feels humiliated in living with her mother and

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