What is the significance of the quilts to Maggie and her mother in everyday use?

When Mama gives the quilts the Maggie, she ensures that the family heritage will stay alive in the manner she prefers. By using the quilts and making her own when they wear out, Maggie will add to the family’s legacy, rather than distancing herself from it.

Why should Maggie get the quilts in everyday use?

For the two older women, heritage means passing down skills and practical heirlooms to the next generation. When Maggie thinks of the quilts, she remembers how she was taught to make them and uses them because she believes that that is what her grandma would want her to do.

What do the quilts symbolize in everyday use?

The quilts are pieces of living history, documents in fabric that chronicle the lives of the various generations and the trials, such as war and poverty, that they faced. The quilts serve as a testament to a family’s history of pride and struggle.

What does Mama symbolize in everyday use?

Mama tells the story of her daughter Dee’s arrival. Told from first person narrative, Mama’s point of view offers an insight into the mother figure who appreciates her heritage while also representing a symbol of living history.

What is the message of everyday use?

Education. Through Dee, “Everyday Use” explores how education affects the lives of people who come from uneducated communities, considering the benefits of an education as well as the tradeoffs. Alice Walker clearly believes that education can be, in certain ways, helpful to individuals.

Why does Mama give the quilts to Maggie?

Mama, the narrator, ultimately gives the family quilts to Maggie instead of Dee (Wangero) because she recognizes that Dee gets everything she wants, that she’s even already claimed the quilts as her own, because they were promised to Maggie, and because Maggie is the daughter who wants them for the right reasons.

What is the conflict between Dee and Maggie over?

The main conflict of the story “Everyday Use” is that Dee wants the quilt to show off with her friends, but mama wants to give the quilt to Maggie, because she thinks Maggie will “use” it everyday; not just showing off their heritage everyday. Although she loves her family she is ashamed for her friends to meet them.

Why does Dee think Maggie should not have the quilts?

Dee thinks the quilts should be preserved as art objects; not used up. Why does Dee think that Maggie should not have the quilts? Dee says her mother doesn’t understand that the hand-stitched quilts are important and should be preserved.

Why does Dee think Mama and Maggie don’t understand their heritage?

Dee thinks Mama and Maggie don’t understand their heritage because they don’t change from it. In Dee’s mind, Maggie and Mama lack the “Ethnic Pride” to leave the historical borders and live a prosperous life. In saying ‘”You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie.

Why is Dee angry at the end of the story?

At the end of the story, Dee, who was always brighter, better-looking, and favored, is angry because her mother refuses to give the quilts which she, Grandma Dee, and Big Dee made over the years.

How did Dee treat Mama and Maggie?

Dee would hang the quilts. Maggie would use the quilts. Mama gave the quilts to Maggie because she promised them to her, and Mama wants the quilts to be used. Dee is furious and thinks that her family can not intellectually grap the significance of the quilts.

How does Dee feel about Maggie?

Dee, on the other hand, looks down upon her sister and believes she is backward. She suggests that Maggie would not appreciate the quilts and would instead put them to everyday use. Dee feels a sense of entitlement, which defines her relationship with Maggie.

What happened to Maggie in everyday use?

Severely burned in a house fire when she was a child, her scarred, ugly appearance hides her sympathetic, generous nature. She lives at home and is protected by Mama, remaining virtually untouched by the outside world.

What is the relationship between Maggie and Dee?

The most basic relationship is that they are sisters. Dee is the older sister, Maggie the younger. However, there is more to them than this. Dee is the star: the family member who went away.

How does mama feel about Maggie and Dee?

Mama is brutally honest and often critical in her assessment of both Dee and Maggie. She harshly describes shy, withering Maggie’s limitations, and Dee provokes an even more pointed evaluation. Mama resents the education, sophistication, and air of superiority that Dee has acquired over the years.

What is special about the two quilts Dee wants?

The two quilts that Dee wants are pieces of her ancestors lives, “the sacred generations of women” of whom, her mother realizes, Maggie is, indeed, a part.

Why does Dee change her name?

Dee changes her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo as a way to establish her new identity as an independent, proud African woman. In doing so, Dee rejects her traditional family heritage in favor of renouncing the former slave owners that initially named her ancestors.

What is the best description of Mama in everyday use?

Mama describes herself as a big-boned woman with hands that are rough from years of physical labor. She wears overalls and has been both mother and father to her two daughters. Poor and uneducated, she was not given the opportunity to break out of her rural life.

What kind of person is Mama in everyday use?

The narrator of the story, Mama is an African-American woman living in the Deep South. She is a hard-working, practical person with simple tastes, and she lives with her younger daughter, Maggie, in their small house.

Who is the antagonist in everyday use?

In “Everyday Use,” the antagonist is the narrator’s daughter Dee, also known as Wangero.