Question

Read the following excerpt from "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker: "The truth is," I said, "I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas." She gasped like a bee had stung her. "Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use." "I reckon she would," I said. "God knows I been saving 'em for long enough with nobody using 'em. I hope she will!" I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told they were old-fashioned, out of style. Based on this excerpt, which description most likely describes the significance of the story's title?

Answer 1

Answer:

A.  People connect with their culture by continually revisiting past traditions.

Explanation:

Alice Walker's Everyday Use revolves around the lives of the three women, mother-daughters, and their perception about what constitutes heritage, tradition, culture, and one's identity. Mama and Maggie may life in a dilapidated house but their sense of identity to their roots remains unbroken whereas the 'better educated' daughter Dee "Wangero" is more of a 'westernized' approach to her identity.

In the given passage, Dee hates the fact that her desired quilts were given to her sister Maggie who will only "put them to everyday use" whereas her own plan was to put them up like some souvenir and put in on display and not use it. The narrator Mama recollects the time when she had offered those same quilts to her when she first went to college but she had called them "old-fashioned, out of style" and refused to take them. And now that she's had a place of her own, she wanted to 'show-off' her heritage and tradition and use it as a way to 'decorate' her house. So, judging by the way the author decided to portray the characters to their relationship with the quilt, the book's title Everyday Use seemed likely to signify how people connect and feel connected with their culture through the frequent revisiting of past traditions.

Thus, the correct answer is option A.