Everyday_Use

Everyday Use True Heritage In the story “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker tells a tale of how a daughter’s idea of heritage is distorted by society, and how her true heritage lies within her family. Walker conveys this theme by narrating the story from what is apparent to be the mother’s point of view of how Dee, the oldest of the two daughters, does not have a grasp of her true heritage. Dee’s idea of her heritage is clouded by her experiences away at school and her new friend Hakim-a-barber. The real Johnson family heritage is evident in Ms. Johnson’s detailed description of daily activities around the house. It is easy to picture Ms. Johnson in her day-to-day activities with descriptions of events being this graphic, “One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall” (131). The reader almost needs to reread her descriptions to make sure she is talking about herself and not some large male farm hand. Her description of herself further adds credibility to her being a real women of rural Georgia in the late 60’s, “In real life I heritage, dee, ms, johnson, story, life, dee’s, true, quilts, maggie, herself, time, real, point, johnson’s, idea, house, family, begins, women, walker, try, traditions, thinks, things, theme, sure, shows, over, others, one, mother’s, memories, large, knows, hand, give, explains, early, doesn’t, differences, descriptions, description, conflict, come, beliefs, being, away, almost, activities