In Alice Walkers Everyday Use,----------The Seagull Reader - Essay Example

15 June Walker’s “Everyday Use Tradition versus Modernity Modernity conflicts with traditions, because of their different values and priorities. One traditional mother, however, secures her heritage the way she believes it should be protected. In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” Mama raises two remarkably different daughters: timid Maggie and confident Dee. The setting is the 1960s, when the Civil Rights Movement is at its peak. Dee sees herself as a symbol of modernity and the social movement, so she changes her name to an African one, Wangero.

Conflict arises when Dee aims to take the family’s quilts. This story demonstrates that traditional people have the right to preserve their beliefs and practices without interference from modern-thinking individuals, because modernity and traditions are both valuable and no one is superior to another. Traditional people deserve the same respect and tolerance as modern-thinking individuals. Mama decides that the quilt belongs to Maggie, because they represent the African tradition of using quilts for their functional purposes.

The quilt represents rural tradition that only Maggie understands and supports. The quilt has never fundamentally changed and has only expanded, as generations passed it from one family to another. Since Mama knows that Maggie will proudly continue this tradition, she asserts to Dee that Maggie deserves these quilts more than her. Dee reasons with her mother that: “[Maggie is] probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use” (Walker). She looks down on Maggie for being a rural woman with no education and “breeding.

” She believes that by treating this quilt as an artifact, she provides a better use for her heritage. Mama, however, is tired of people belittling rural folk. She knows that the quilt belongs to Maggie, because unlike Dee, Maggie will use it for everyday use. And that is what their tradition is for- to be lived each day of their lives.Modernity and traditions are both valuable to human identity. Mama and Maggie have not changed their traditional attitudes and lifestyles, while Dee completely chooses to change her identity, because she is ashamed of her rural background.

Mama and Maggie live simple, rural lives. Mama milks cows, kills boars, and wears flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls throughout the day. Maggie helps her mother in their everyday farm and house chores. By describing how Mama and Maggie love their work, Walker argues that rural people are also happy and content with their lives. Dee is also pleased as a liberal woman. She is the kind of person, who: “At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was” (Walker). She enjoys pursuing college and consuming modernist values and ideas.

Hence, both traditions and modernity make different groups of people happy.Modernity and traditions should not be seen in a hierarchy, because people have a right to possess and protect different beliefs. Maggie has low self-esteem, because of her burns, which makes her cower under Dee. Mama describes Maggie as “a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car…” (Walker). She stands for the rural folk, who modern people oppress and control. Dee stands for the modern people, who look down on rural traditions as an unimportant, backward culture.

Mama knows how much her rural roots embarrass Dee: “[Dee] wrote me once that no matter where we ‘choose’ to live, she will manage to come see us. But she will never bring her friends” (Walker). Dee does not respect her rural heritage, which worsens when she becomes “Africanized.” She continues to denigrate her family for being “backward,” which means that she does not truly understand and appreciate her heritage (Walker). Dee asserts that her Mama and Maggie do not realize the need to preserve heritage.

For Mama, Dee is mistaken. Dee is the one who has no inkling of true tradition. Maggie is the only one who can preserve their tradition, because she will continue their rural life, as their ancestors have. She will remain a simple, rural woman. For Walker, to be traditional is a personal and valid choice- as valid as Dee’s choice to be a Wangero.“Everyday Use” argues that modernity and traditions can and should co-exist. They are both part of human civilization. They are similarly the core of identities for different people.

Through Mama, Walker portrays that traditions have a real and valid place in modern society. Modern thinkers should respect traditions, if they also want to be respected. In the end, people are all human beings, who have different beliefs and practices. To co-exist, despite these differences, is critical to a peaceful and tolerant society.Work CitedWalker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Ed. Joseph Kelly. The Seagull Reader: Stories, 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton. 459-468. Print.