Alice Walker Is One of Term Paper

Total Length: 715 words ( 2 double-spaced pages)

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Mamma has always given Dee anything she wanted, and allowed Maggie to step back into the shadows.

Maggie has the knowledge of a promised and very scant dowry. Mama has promised her the quilts that have been handed down in the family and those which they had themselves made. The promise was genuine and meaningful as quilts are important to a new bride as they can protect and keep one warm. Yet, Dee assumes that whatever she asks for will be granted, so she requests the quilts from Mama, who refuses her, request and reasserts her promise to Maggie. The whole argument is directed by the stoicism of the mother, the surrender of the Maggie and the brutish manner in which Dee assumes the right to have the quilts, as she is enlightened and Maggie is not, and she will give them their proper place, while Maggie will likely simply use them as quilts.

The quilts mean a great deal to Maggie, as to her they mean home, comfort and the love and companionship of her mother.
Dee on the other hand assumes that to Maggie they are simply utilitarian objects, not to be cherished, as she would lovingly frame them and hang them on the walls. Mama gives the quilts to Maggie, because Maggie has never had anything, she has never been given a gift and she deserves to have what she was promised. Dee is entirely wrong in her assertion that Maggie cannot appreciate her heritage. For Maggie, heritage is close at hand, it is not something that must be displayed and shown to the world, as a point of pride, it simply is. Maggie's memories of loss and hardship are even more real than Dee's as Maggie has no pretense for setting herself apart from the world by displaying the cruelty that the world has offered her. While Dee on the other hand through her dramatic display of African dress and words, and her desire to possess and control, items that give the world proof of her historical hardships is entirely separated from her heritage and her history.

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