The Wisdom of Heritage and Heritage of Wisdom Essay Example

considers that the heirloom she is taking away is still useful to her mother and sister Maggie as both of them are using that churn to make butter. However, Dee desires it because, by applying the knowledge she has gained from the books, she mainly concerns to turn the butter churn as a symbol of one of her family traditions, ignoring the true purpose of the churn.Maggie, on the other hand, preserves the butter churn by using it daily. What Maggie does might look meaningless to Dee, but Maggie knows more about the churn than Dee even though she has not received formal education. Despite living in abject poverty that causes Maggie and her mother to use the churn to produce their own butter, Maggie's style of sustaining her family heirloom represents a simple content way of life where culture and heritage are valued for their everyday usefulness.

Another tangible heirloom that Dee wants is the dasher from the churn.When Maggie explains to Dee that Aunt Dee's first husband had whittled the dash and tells Dee some information regarding their family history, Dee laughs at Maggie and ridicules her by seemingly complimenting '"Maggie's brain is like an elephant's"'(53). Because Dee is obviously unfamiliar with her family history, she only plans to own the dasher as a material connection to her heritage and does not strive to learn it as a means to understand the family history. Evidently, she proclaims, '"and I'll think of something artistic to do with the dasher"'(53).

For Dee, the dasher is merely an artifact to put on display, not a family heirloom. However, Maggie sees the item as a tool in the

present days that epitomizes her family history since the dasher is made by her late uncle. Therefore, Maggie believes the dasher keeps attaching her to the family since one of the family members had created it to assist her daily household chores. The most significant tangible heirloom that shows contrasting manners of conservation issued from education and wisdom are the old quilts, which are made from the pieces of Maggie and Dee's late grandparents' clothes (55).The history of the quilts themselves is the history of the family.

As the narrator points out, '"In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn for fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandma Jarrell's Paisley shirts... that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War"' (55). Dee views the quilts as having historical and cultural values because her late grandmother hand-stitched them and used materials that her past family generations possessed.

Dee also desires the quilts for their financial and aesthetic values as she plans to hang them on the wall (72). Moreover, she decides to utilize the quilts as decorations in her house to show her appreciation of her family artifacts, which she believes will symbolize her ethnic heritage (72). The possession of the old quilts has clearly raised the level of confrontation between Dee and Maggie. This is directly revealed when Dee yells, '"But they're priceless! "', after learning her mother has promised the quilts to Maggie as her wedding gift (68).Dee also proclaims that Maggie does not deserve to have the quilts as Maggie would merely put them on the bed and they would be in

rags in five years' time (68).

'"Maggie can't appreciate these quilts! "' Dee argues and continues criticizing, '"She'd probably be backward enough to put them [the quilts] to everyday use"' (66). Conversely, this is how Maggie treats the quilts based on her wisdom of the worth of everyday items and their usefulness. She realizes that using the quilts daily as comforter and blanket will keep the value of quilts alive.She also treasures the quilts for personal and emotional reasons as the preserved goods nurture her endless love and thoughts toward her late grandparents and ancestors. This is clear when she tells her mother, '"I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts"' signifying the connection between the quilts and her cherished memory of the ancestors (74).

Thus, Maggie values her heirlooms as memorabilia of the person who created the preserved tools and as links to the past. Besides, Maggie has the skills of making quilts, which implies her continuous preservation of this heirloom.Essentially, Maggie values the quilts because they not only represent an art culture of her ethnic heritage but also personify the intrinsic part of her past generations. Apart from focusing on the tangible heirlooms such as the butter churn, dasher, house, and quilts, Walker identifies the name as the abstract heirloom to illustrate another distinct way of heritage preservation deriving from educational and wisdom reasons. Dee's decision when she informs her mother that she has changed her name shows Walker's perception of how the name itself could help symbolize one's ethnic tradition.Dee thinks by having a name that is more African-sounding, she will be more African than her family.

When her mother asks Dee

what happened to "Dee" that causes her to discard the name, Dee declares, '"She's dead, and I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress[ed] me"' (27). She could not accept the fact that the name "Dee" comes from her ancestors, which at the same time, indicates her as a descendant of slaves. Therefore, by getting rid of the name she has been hated so much, Dee believes she has proven her African heritage.Despite claiming she knows everything about the family and its history, Dee is never aware her name change might keep her separated from the family. She discards her name that is supposed to be carried forever throughout her entire life.

Strongly influenced by knowledge Dee might have learned in college about name that could serve as a means to display her ethnic background as an African, Dee's primarily intention is to destroy and erase her past. She does not realize the name "Dee" connects her to the family history and represents special intangible heirloom she should appreciate and preserve eternally.Maggie on the other hand, most likely envies Dee because she is not named after her past relatives. Maggie might feel she is more worthy of having the name because she knows more about her family history and has good memory of it.

This becomes immediately evident when Maggie recalls, '"Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash... His name was Henry, but they called him Stash"' (52). The fact is Maggie has the right to be named "Dee" since she loves her family and is not ashamed of them, unlike Dee, even though her ancestors used to be slaves

when they first came to America.

Based on her daily life experience, Maggie believes possessing a traditional family name that has been passed down through generations of women in the family will strengthen the bond between her, late, and future family members. Generally, both formal education and wisdom possessed by characters of Dee and Maggie respectively shape the preservation of cultural and ethnic traditions. Dee and Maggie bring up different perspectives when they discuss the possession of family heirlooms. Dee completely misjudges the way she should treat her heritage and it seems that she misuses the education she has received.

Her major concern to have the heirlooms is to signify her African roots to others according to what she has learned in college. Consequently, she comes to visit her family with a prime intention of gathering family heirlooms to display in her own house. Besides, changing her name to Wangero makes Dee proud because she feels no longer related to her slave-ancestors, and the new name symbolizes her as a "pure" African. In fact, although Dee is narrated as a suave and knowledgeable person, she is obviously the one who does not understand her family heritage. Maggie, in contrast, uses different approaches to sustaining her family heritage.

She values the heirlooms for what they mean to her as an individual, particularly for emotional, personal, and practical reasons. Undoubtedly, Maggie relies on her family-oriented wisdom and takes advantage of the concept of everyday use items to sustain her ethic heritage. Although Maggie is uneducated and lives in an old-fashioned setting, she successfully identifies the values of preserving family heirlooms by living with the preserved tools and appreciating their usefulness.

In essence, Dee looks at her heritage through the prism of education while Maggie views her heritage through the prism of wisdom originating from her life experience.