The Quit as a Uniter and Divider Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Quit as a Uniter and Divider - Essay ExampleIt is this quilt, a symbol and historical accounting of the struggles, trial, and tribulations of black women in America, that divides the family, and illustrates Walkers frustration with the desire by many newfangled women to break away from their past, and to deprecate the true struggles and accomplishments of African-American women, within the context of a life filled with prejudice and hardship. As the modern and foreward-thinking daughter, Dee, visits home and her mother, Mama and sister, Maggie, Dee looks for and finds two quilts that Mama and her sister, Dicie, had worked on together and created. The bonds of sisterhood in the Jim Crowe South were of the goal importance to survival, and quilts in general hold still for this bond and struggle for survival. Not only are they terrific folk art, only when are also representations--a visual accounting-- of the struggle for light in a darken world. This marvelous history, chronic led in quilts, is one to be valued, and remembered, a testament to a history filled with self-exaltation and struggles. It is clear in this short story that Mama and Maggie, still living in the homestead, and rooted in the culture of the South, value this history. Dee, on the other hand, is only in to visit, has married a man with a foreign religion, has eschewed her given name for an African name which Mama cannot even pronounce, and is filled with self-righteous vexation at the oppressive past of her family. In a way she wants to wear this past as a badge, but also move on from it at the same time. The quilt represents this struggle within Dee to vex remnants from her familys past, such as the quilt, but to also neatly fold it away in a drawer, and cod it out when needed. Dee sees this history as something to be employ and manipulated, while Mama and Maggie see it as something to be proud of, to use every day and to cover their bodies in warmth and the basic soak of remembra nce. The tension in the story in manifested by the quilts and Dees desire to have them (Whitsett). Mama, had promised them to Maggie. Dee want the quilts, but Mama knows that Maggie deserves them to a greater extent than Dee does. Although Maggie had not had the opportunities Dee has had in life, and is not as successful as Dee, Maggie represents a more traditional view of family, history, and struggles, that Dee, with all her worldliness and sophistication, cannot fathom. Dee becomes angry at Mamas refusal to let her take what she wants from the house. Mama can sense that Dee will not treat the quilts with the requisite respect that Maggie would. The quilt is used to highlight the tension between Mama and Dee, and Dee and Maggie, in particular. Dee and Maggie have had a fractured relationship throughout their lives, and represent the struggle between modernism and traditionalism in the black community. Many want to wear their hereditary pattern like a trophy, take on African names , dress in African garb, to show their antecedent oppressors that they are infrangible, powerful, and independent. This means moving on from the lifestyle that Mama and Maggie represent--one of traditional respect to their own family, and the strong women who led families and held the African American family together in difficult times. While Mama and Aunt Dicie were impede sisters and created the beautiful quilts together, Maggie and Dee have no such relationship and barely talk, with little sisterhood or conference between them. Indeed, the more modern Dee looks down on Maggie and feels she can waltz in the house,