“Everyday Use”- Annotation Post

Heritage is defined as “that which has been or may be inherited; any property, and esp. land, which devolves by right of inheritance”. This term plays a major role in the discussion between the mother and two daughters in the short story of “Everyday Use”. Throughout the entire play there is a debate between the true heritage of their family and the constructed idea of the oldest daughter Dee. Heritage is something that can’t be made up, it is “the fact of inheriting; inheritance, hereditary succession” from the family that you have come from. In this short story Dee does two major things that appear to be slightly disrespectful to her ancestor’s tradition. The first example is the language used by Dee which is supposed to be educated compared to Maggie and Mama. Although she is more highly educated than them she still carries herself with sort of an ignorant and superior persona. Dee truly misinterprets her heritage by embarrassing these new concepts that she has learned in school about African and Muslim culture which only disconnects her from her true family heritage. On the other hand Mama teaches Maggie the traditional upbringings, where she knows only where she comes from. Additionally when Dee announces to her mom about her changing her name and uses African language to communicate it to her. She states that “I couldn’t bare it being named after the people that oppressed me” (p.149). In other words she feels that her name was passed down to her wasn’t important enough to keep. This is a major time in the story that demonstrates that she has not only lost heritage but her herself as well. She totally forgets about the long line of women where her name comes from and picks up this African name that her mom can barely pronounce.

The second example was when the quilts came into the discussion. A large piece of their heritage goes along with those quilts that Mama wanted to give to them. These quilts were made from generations ago and passed down to them. Dee’s confusion of heritage shows when she says that the quilts shouldn’t be put into use every day while Maggie who knows how to quilt would respect the items that were passed down to her to be used. However I feel that the family heritage that was passed along within the quilts ended up in the right person hand in the end.

Works Cited

Oxford English Dictionary." Home: Oxford English Dictionary. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2011. <http://www.oed.com/>.