FREE ESSAY ON ON A ROAD TO HERITAGE

ON A ROAD TO HERITAGE

On the Road to Heritage
A key factor in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use," and Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets," is
heritage. Throughout both stories the use of heritage can be seen easily. Walker's
avoidance of heritage in her writings and Tan's understanding of heritage in her writing.
Through this readers can see the true meaning of heritage. Understanding both sides of
these two stories gives readers a chance to explore their own heritage and reflect on how
they accept their past.
By contrasting the family characters in "Everyday Use," Walker illustrates lost heritage
by placing the significance of heritage solely on material objects. Walker presents Mama
and Maggie, the younger daughter, as an example that heritage in both knowledge and form
passing from one generation to another through a learning experience connection. However,
by a broken connection, Dee the older daughter, represents a misconception of heritage as
material. Dee, the "heritage queen" portrays a rags to riches daughter who does not
understand what heritage is all about. Her definition of heritage hangs on a wall to show
off, not to be used. Dee's avoidance of heritage becomes clear when she is talking to
Mama about changing her name, she says, "I couldn't bear it any longer being named after
the people who oppress me" (Walker 75). Thus resembling that Dee just takes another name
without even understanding what her original name means. She tries to explain to Mama
that her name now has meaning, quality, and heritage; never realizing that the new name
means nothing. Changing her name bothers Mama and Maggie because Dee's name is a fourth
generation name, truly giving it heritage. Dee likes to gloat to her friends about how
she was raised, so she tries to show off by decorating her house with useful items from
her past. Her argument with Mama about taking quilts that were hand stitched as opposed
to sewn by machine gives readers a chance to see Dee's outlook of heritage is short
lived. Dee says to Mama, "But they're priceless. . . Maggie would put them on the bed and
in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!" (Walker 77). Mama will not allow her
daughter to take the quilts because she has been saving them for Dee's sister, Maggie,
and she wants the quilts to be put into everyday use. By helping and living with Mama,
Maggie uses the hand-made items in her life, experiences the life of her ancestors, and
learns the history of both, exemplified by Maggie's knowledge of the hand-made items and
the people who made them-a knowledge in which Dee does not possess. Dee attempts to
connect with her heritage by taking "picture after picture of me sitting there in front
of the house. . . She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included"
(Walker 74). Therefore showing Dee's quest for heritage is external, wishing to have
these various items in order to display them in her home. She wants these items because
she perceives each to have value, as shown in the argument yet again. Mama finally
realizes that Dee does not understand her heritage when she says, "This was Maggie's
portion. This was the way she knew God to work" (Walker 77). She allowed Dee to run over
her enough, and now she would not allow her foolish behavior to carry on, because
heritage needs to be put to everyday use and not just be hung up on a wall for people to
see. After Mama gives Maggie the quilts, Dee says, "You just don't understand Your
heritage" (Walker 77). Dee believes heritage to be the quilt on the wall or the churn in
the alcove. She knows the items are hand-made, but she does not know the knowledge and
history behind the items. Yet, Mama does know the knowledge and history and she also
knows that Maggie does too. Ironically, Dee criticizes Mama for not understanding
heritage when, in fact, Dee fails to understand heritage herself. Throughout this story,
heritage is understood by two characters and avoided by one character. Readers can
understand that now there are two different meanings of heritage, one being everyday use
and the other being showing things off. Dee mistakenly places heritage wholly in what she
owns, not what she knows.
In Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets" the theme of Chinese-American life, focuses mainly on
mother-daughter relationships, where the mother is an immigrant from China and the
daughter is thoroughly Americanized-yellow on the outside and white underneath. Tan
begins her story by describing a feeling that Jing-mei, the narrator, speaks of. She
says, "The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzen, China, I feel
different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new
course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, my mother was right. I am
becoming Chinese" (Tan 120). Tan tells a story within itself giving readers a chance to
get to know the character right off the bat and also allowing an understanding of
heritage to be brought out. Jing-mei has come to China to trace her Chinese roots which
her mother told her she possessed, and to meet her two twin half-sisters whom her mother
had to abandon on her attempt to flee from the Japanese. Readers can see that Jing-mei
has waited her whole life to connect with her heritage when she says, ". . .I saw myself
transforming like a werewolf, a mutant tag of DNA suddenly triggered, replicating into a
syndrome, a cluster of telltale Chinese behaviors, all those things my mother did to
embarrass me. . . . But today I realize I've never really known what it means to be
Chinese. I am thirty-six years old. My mother is dead and I am on a train, carrying with
me her dreams of coming home. I am going to China" (Tan 120). Although Jing-mei was not
born in China like her mother, she now has a grasp on her life and on her mothers. By
having the story take place on a train in China, helps the tracing of heritage become
real for readers. Strong feelings of happiness and sorrow are felt when Jing-mei traces
her Chinese roots and becomes in touch with her heritage and her past; allowing readers
to place themselves in the same situation and experience the feelings are being portrayed
by the characters. Learning about family heritage is something people do not always
understand, like Jing-mei, people do not always want to believe their past and heritage.
When coming to an understanding of their past, people can lay to rest their urging
thoughts and can come closer in contact with their present life. Now that Jing-mei has
met her sisters, she can now make peace in her life knowing that she has fulfilled her
dreams and the dreams of her mother. Amy Tan reveals Jing-mei's epiphany well by writing,
"I look at their faces again and I see no trace of my mother in them. Yet they still look
familiar. And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my
family. It is in our blood. After all these years, it can finally be let go" (Tan 134).
Jing-mei finally realizes that she is Chinese and that her mother was right. Jing-mei
also says, "Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in
surprise to see, at last, her long cherished wish" (Tan 134). Thus adding on to her
realization of her heritage and past. Jing-mei can now lay to rest the thought of her
mother never seeing her twin daughters again and continue on with her existing life, but
now with a different perspective, a Chinese perspective.
Throughout both of the stories, heritage becomes a major factor. The characters coming to
an understanding of heritage helps readers to become more fascinated with the stories. As
Mark Bauerlein put it, "A single approach will miss too much, will overlook important
aspects of culture not perceptible to that particular angle of vision. A multitude of
approaches will pick up insight here and a piece of knowledge there and more of culture
will enter into the inquiry" (1976). Bauerlein gives an important point, allowing readers
to analyze not only the story, but to bring out certain points of the story. Bringing out
the points in Walker's "Everyday Use" and Tan's "A Pair of Tickets" gives readers a
chance to see the heritage "shining through".
Bibliography
Works Cited
Walker, Alice. "Everyday Use." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.
7th 
ed. Eds. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 71-78.
Tan, Amy. "A Pair of Tickets." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama.
7th 
ed. Eds. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 120-134.
Bauerlein, Mark. "What is Cultural Studies." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction,
Poetry, and 
Drama. 7th ed. Eds. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 1999. 1975-1976.