Family is Heritage Heritage is something one inherits. Heritage is important because many people receive things of both emotional and historical value. It could either be an item or a tradition passed down from generation to generation. It teaches the person inheriting that something a little bit of family history. In Everyday Use by Alice Walker, mother’s daughters Maggie and Dee fight over who gets to keep two quilts. Momma, Dee, and Maggie know the quilts are important because heritage is important to them. Mama the narrator is a loving mother who is strong and hardworking. Maggie is her daughter she is sweet and pure. She was severely burned as a child and was left terrible scars all over her body. Dee the other daughter is a light skin, educated, boastful but beautiful woman. Mama dreams about being with Dee on a television talk show and have Dee thank her for all her success. This Fantasy reveals to the reader that mama feels underappreciated by Dee and doesn’t get the recognition she deserves. But mamma and Maggie were really close but mama felt that Maggie was so limited. Maggie is a socially awkward character, who is always nervous. She was severely burned as a child in a house fire. Maggie was left with an ugly appearance, but in the inside she was an honest and beautiful person. Although she is a sweet person she isn’t an educated one because she spent most of her life at home with her mama. Maggie and her mama were very close. Mama mentions that Maggie is going to marry John Thomas; mama wants Maggie to marry him so that maybe she can gain self confidence. Maggie’s relationship with Dee was one of jealousy and “awe”. She always felt as if Dee always had it easier because she was gifted. They never really had anything in common. But Maggie wasn’t one to hate her sister she was a sweet person. Dee is a young girl who loves to learn. She doesn’t care about her family, or their approval in anything she does. Dee and her mother had a distant relationship, mama felt as if Dee never appreciated her. But she was an evil girl, when the house was burning she watched it with such focus like it was her doing. Maggie connected more with her family so she deserves the quilts. Maggie deserves the quilt because she understood the origins of the quilt. She knew where the quilts came from she understood the emotional value of them, “”She can have them, mama,” she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. “I can member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (Walker, 267). She knows she can connect to the older generations of her family without the quilts because she understands the history of her family. She deserves them because she is one with the quilts, she knows how to stitch which is most likely one of the family’s heritage. One of the quilts name is “Lone Star” because of the special quilting pattern. The other quilts name is “Walk around the Mountain” also because of its special quilting pattern. Both Quilts had scraps of Grandma Dee’s dresses that are about 50+ years old. They also had bits of Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts, and a small penny size piece of Great Grandpa Ezra’s Uniform that he wore in the civil war. Dee sees the quilts as artifacts, she wants them just to show case them. She won’t use them for what they’re for and if they mess up she won’t know how to fix them because she wasn’t close to Grandma Dee and
