Heritage in Everyday Use

            In Everyday Use, a story written by Alice Walker, many intertwining pieces of heritage are knit throughout the tale of a low-income black family. Heritage is what is important to people, long remembered and part of who they are. Ms. Johnson and her two daughters had many things that were important to them, but heritage is what you are supposed to hold dear for many years, it is where you come from. .
             Ms. Johnson was a very old-fashioned, single, African American woman with strong family values. She dreamed of having a perfect family, but she also respected her ancestors and how they progressed as a family as well. She named her oldest daughter Dee after her aunt Dicie. This showed the readers that Ms. Johnson was devoted to keeping the "family name" considering her grandmother, and great-grandmother had the name as well. This shows that family heritage ran deep in her heart to not forget where she came from.
             Later on in the story, Ms. Johnson noticed imprints in the butter churn top that Uncle Buddy had made. She studied the intriqite details in her mind, obviously carrying her back to when it was used, and how hard it was for her family trying to make it. Dee, Ms. Johnson's daughter insisted on taking the churn top for some sort of decoration. It was described as Ms. Johnson looked at it, "You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood(90)." Ms. Johnson understood hardship, family ties and she knew that her lost relatives were something dear to her. I think that Ms. Johnson held her family so dear to her that she could not tell Dee that she could not have the churn top. Ms. Johnson loved the old artifact, yet she loved Dee that much more. .
             Dee, on the other hand, was very materialistic. She held clothes, jewelry, hairstyles, etc. at a high rank of importance in her life. Heritage was of no real value to her.