The Art Of Quilts In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” Essay, Research Paper

In most cases, siblings who are brought up in same environment have very different outlooks on integral parts of their lives such as heritage. Such is the case with Maggie and Dee, two very crucial characters in “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. They both look at their heritage in very different ways. Maggie realizes her role in her heritage while Dee has set her role aside. The fight of Maggie and Dee over the quilts symbolizes their difference in opinion over their American heritage. With her story, “Everyday Use,” Alice Walker is saying that art should be a living, breathing part of the culture it arose from, rather than a frozen timepiece to be observed from a distance. To make this point, she uses the quilts in her story to symbolize art; and what happens to these quilts represents her theory of art.

The quilts themselves, as art, are inseparable from the culture they arose from. The history of these quilts is a history of the family. The narrator says, “In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece . . . that was from Great Grandpa Ezra’s uniform that he wore in the Civil War(414).” So these quilts, which have become an heirloom, not only represent the family, but are an integral part of the family. Walker is saying that true art not only represents its culture, but is an inseparable part of that culture. The manner in which the quilts are treated shows Walker’s view of how art should be treated. Dee covets the quilts for their financial and aesthetic value. “But they’re priceless!” she exclaims, when she learns that her mother has already promised them to Maggie (414). Dee argues that Maggie is “backward enough to put them to everyday use (414).” Indeed, this is how Maggie views the quilts. She values them for what them mean to her as an individual. She also knows that the quilts are an active process, kept alive through continuous renewal. As the narrator points out, “Maggie knows how to quilt (414).”

The two sisters’ values concerning the quilt represent the two main approaches to art appreciation in our society. Art can be valued for financial and aesthetic reasons, or it can be valued for personal and emotional reasons. When the narrator snatches the quilts from Dee and gives them to Maggie, Walker is saying that the second set of values is the correct one. Art, in order to be kept alive, must be put to “Everyday Use” — literally in the case of the quilts, figuratively in the case of conventional art.

Dee feels that her heritage is something that belongs in a museum that is hung up on the wall to look at. When Dee is asking about the churn she says, “‘I can use the churn top as a centerpiece for the alcove table.’”(414) Dee looks at her heritage like a decoration that can’t be used. One doesn’t use a churn as a centerpiece, one makes butter with it. Dee just does not understand that one doesn’t need a churn top to remember one’s heritage. Toward the end of the story when Dee asks about taking the quilts and starts to argue with her mom about it she says, “‘Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!’”(414) This quote shows that Dee feels that her heritage is a museum piece to be put up on the wall and look and to be “oohed” and “aahed” at.

Maggie understands that although the quilts mean a lot to her she can still remember her heritage without something physical. At the end of the story when Dee is arguing with her mom about taking the quilts Maggie hears them and says, “‘She can have them mama . . . I can remember Grandma Dee without the quilts.’”(415) Maggie realizes that the quilts aren’t her heritage. The quilts are a representation of her heritage but not part of it. She knows that she doesn’t need the quilts to remember her heritage but that her sister does. This also implies that her connection with the quilts is personal and emotional rather than financial and aesthetic.

Alice Walker is using the quilts, and the fate of those quilts, to make the point that art can only have meaning if it remains connected to the culture it sprang from. To Dee, heritage is a museum piece to be hung up on one’s wall and looked at. Maggie realizes that it is what is behind the quilts that counts, it’s the heritage and one doesn’t need quilts to remember her heritage. Maggie also knows that she is a part of her heritage and that her heritage actually does matter. Dee does not realize this, she thinks that heritage is just part of the past. This story itself is a good example: Walker didn’t write it to be observed under a glass case, judged aesthetically, and sold to the highest bidder; she meant it to be questioned, to be explored, to be debated — in short, to be put to “Everyday Use.”