Question

identify and analyze two strategies Wangero uses to try to persuade her mother that she , and not her sister Maggie should own the Quilts . explain why wengero ultimately fails at persuading her mother to give her the quilts and what larger message ot themse Walker is trying to convey. The ecxcerp is "everyday use" by Alice walker. make it an essay with an intro, short body paragraph 1 and and conclusion.

Answer 1

Introduction
In Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use,” the conflict over two handmade quilts crystallizes a larger struggle over who has the authority to define and preserve cultural heritage. Wangero (formerly Dee) tries to persuade her mother that she — not her shy, rooted sister Maggie — should own the quilts. She uses strategies that appeal to cultural authenticity and to aesthetic display, but ultimately fails. Walker uses Mama’s decision to endorse lived tradition over performative reclamation to make a broader point about the meaning of heritage.

Body paragraph
Wangero’s first strategy is an appeal to cultural authenticity: by changing her name and invoking African roots she frames herself as the rightful steward of family artifacts. She insists the quilts are symbols of Black heritage and implies that her newly embraced identity gives her the interpretive authority to claim them. Her second strategy treats the quilts as art objects to be preserved and admired rather than used. She disparages Maggie’s ability to “appreciate” them and suggests the quilts belong in a display context where their aesthetic and historical value can be recognized. Both approaches try to convert heritage into a commodity of identity or taste: the name-change rhetoric positions Wangero as culturally enlightened, while the preservation argument transforms intimate family craft into museum pieces. Mama sees through both moves. She recognizes that the quilts’ value is lived — sewn into family memory and daily life — and that Maggie, who will wrap herself in them, will honor that continuity. By refusing Wangero’s claim and giving the quilts to Maggie, Mama rejects a shallow, performative ownership of culture and protects a tradition that functions in the everyday.

Conclusion
Wangero fails because her tactics substitute surface symbols and public display for the practical, intergenerational bonds that give the quilts their real meaning. Walker’s larger message is a critique of romanticized or commodified revivals of cultural identity: true heritage is embodied in ordinary use, memory, and relationships, not in fashions or statements of identity. By siding with Maggie and the everyday use of the quilts, Walker affirms the dignity of lived tradition and the right of ordinary people to define and keep their own cultural legacy.