Reflection:
This essay is based on the short story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker. Name, the identity of a person, a person without a name is a person without an identity. When one chooses to change their name they choose to change a part of them for good or bad they are getting rid of who they were and being reborn, but is their former self actually erased? It's debatable. In this piece I wrote about the meaning of a name and how Dee changed her name to Wangero a more African name trying to connect more with her ancestors or culture as a whole rather than her immediate family in which she actually grew up in.
This essay is based on the short story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker. Name, the identity of a person, a person without a name is a person without an identity. When one chooses to change their name they choose to change a part of them for good or bad they are getting rid of who they were and being reborn, but is their former self actually erased? It's debatable. In this piece I wrote about the meaning of a name and how Dee changed her name to Wangero a more African name trying to connect more with her ancestors or culture as a whole rather than her immediate family in which she actually grew up in.
Essay:
Dee, grew up poor, hated her living conditions and everything to do with it. Barely ever visited her mother and sister especially not accompanied by any man, until one day, she came back with a man and introduced herself as Wangero. In "Every Day Use" by Alice Walkers, Dee is depicted as an outsider observing the culture her family currently lives in. Guitar's quote "It's a part of who I am, Guitar is my name Bains is the slave masters name. And I'm all of that. Slave names don't bother me; slave status does," in Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison not only relates to Dee's character in that she did not like the status she had staying with her family it also relates to her because she didn't enjoy her name.
Dee, grew up poor, hated her living conditions and everything to do with it. Barely ever visited her mother and sister especially not accompanied by any man, until one day, she came back with a man and introduced herself as Wangero. In "Every Day Use" by Alice Walkers, Dee is depicted as an outsider observing the culture her family currently lives in. Guitar's quote "It's a part of who I am, Guitar is my name Bains is the slave masters name. And I'm all of that. Slave names don't bother me; slave status does," in Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison not only relates to Dee's character in that she did not like the status she had staying with her family it also relates to her because she didn't enjoy her name.
Dee/Wangero was an observer, she watched and admired her heritage but refused to live it. She desired her grandmother's quilts to solely hang because it represented her ancestral background, and the life that her grandmother lived. While her mother and sister wanted to use them because it it was essential to their daily lives. Her embrace for her culture is ironic because as a child she hated living with the way her family had to, her mother quotes "she'd practically be dancing around her burning house". When she got older she moved away, cut off contact with the family, and stated that she refused to accept "slave status", she did so by getting herself an education. Though, Dee paraded around her culture/heritage to everyone who would listen, embracing it as she should, but refusing to actually live it as her family does daily.
The biggest connection between Guitar's quote and Dee's attitude is that she changed her name to Wangero. This action shows her denial for who she truly is; she states she changed her slave name and that she was fighting against "slave status", yet, she changed her first name, which was a passed down from her ancestors. Dee's obsession with her name appears to demonstrate how she remains oppressed due to the fact that she won't let go of the past. She attempts to reconstruct herself by changing her name though she cannot truly outrun from the past for the reason that Dee will always be a component of her identity.
Name gives a person definition, its a way to identify someone, a way to distinguish one person from another. When an individual changes their name it can transform who they are in a way, such as a newly wedded wife taking on her husbands last name, she takes on a part of him and grows. Though all in all you can never fully outrun who you were, you are who you are, and can only build on top of what you once were. Dee/Wangero actions apply to Guitar's quote in that Dee purposefully went out to change her "slave status" by changing her name.
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