Comparing Heritage In Walker And Wangero's Everyday Use

We all have our roots that date back for countless generations—an ancestry that has become twisted and entangled with its fellow roots in the giant tree of human life. Every single person’s roots, or their heritage, is so very unique, and it is the specific differences between who everyone descended from that makes people who they are today. Respect runs deep between ancestors and their descendants, creating a common culture and heritage for individual families across the world. By themselves and within groups of people who share their similar practices/culture, each family determines, based on their beliefs, religions, and so forth, how they wish to recognize and honor where they 've come from and how they got to where they are in the present. In the story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, elder daughter Dee/Wangero 's protective attitude concerning her family 's heirlooms causes her aesthetic view of her African heritage to rear its ugly head against younger daughter Maggie 's and mother Mrs. Johnson 's cultural view of their same heritage.

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Every family has its conflicts, its flaws, and, hopefully, its resolves. Mistakes, disagreements, and collaboration are all a part of what makes everyone human, as well as their own individual. As is seen in “Everyday Use,” there is obviously some of this natural human conflict between aesthetic Dee and cultural Maggie and Mama on the proper way to represent and protect their family’s heritage. The Johnson family’s contrasting stances on their intelligence, self-esteem, and family heirlooms guides their transformation from being comprised of one culture to being made up of aspects of two distinct and dysfunctional cultures—the old tradition and the new age. Regardless of the sides that each family member took, in the end, all that really matters is that they each fully embraced their roots and the person they have grown to become, settling down into a lifestyle that they can comfortably call