Everday Use

There is a clear theme here of appreciating your family heritage. Dee (or Wangero) is embarrassed of her mother, sister, and house. Mama mentioned several times how Dee left them behind for “nicer things”. I didn’t quite understand why Dee’s mother allowed her to have such an unappreciative attitude while she was growing up. I got the feeling that Mama was intimidated by Dee as much as Maggie was. Mama said how Dee basically walked all over them because she had more of an education. “She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folk’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice.” I think Mama wanted Dee to have the opportunity to get an education and experience the world outside theirs and that’s why she raised money to send her to school.

When Dee came back she pretended to have changed her ways by taking pictures of her family and her house, eating all of her mother’s food, and trying to take things home with her. In reality she made her family uncomfortable, treating them like they were in a documentary in the pictures, bringing a strange man with her and changing her name. Mama felt their heritage would be better remembered by Maggie, who actually spent time with her grandmother learning how to make the quilts and would put the quilts to good use. “’Maggie can’t appreciate those quilts! She probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use!’ ‘I reckon she would. God knows I been saving ‘em for long enough with nobody using ‘em. I hope she will!’ I didn’t want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wanergo) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style.” By trying to get back her heritage, Dee is only rejecting it even more. I’m just glad Mama finally stood up to her, and quit trying to win the approval of her daughter that she was never going to get.