Anybody from Sri Lanka? This is a prescribed short story for Advenced Level English Literature Syllabus. Strongly recommend watching this to our students.
In this short video, it is clearly represented what Alice Walker portrayed in the text. In it, it is noticeable that the main topic is heritage and its importance for building our ownselves. However, the interest on material things can be also observed by Dee's attitude. Meanwhile, the former topic was shown through Mama and Maggie. On one hand, Maggie has lived memories of her past and remember them through the story, meaning that she takes care about her heritage. Likewise, Mama keeps cooking the food her ancients taught her, living the way she was raised and wearing the clothes that characterizes her culture. On the other hand, Dee transformed completely. She changed her name, her clothes and the way she perceived her heritage. Indeed, she had a formal education and made her change the way she sees life, but she changed all in her; it is a new version of herself. Although I consider it is fundamental to get education and see things from a different perspective because in that way one learns and grows, one should never reject our own past and culture the way she did. Now, she sees her heritage, tradition and history as something that was part of her, something for exhibition; and that is why I think she wanted the quilts. Nevertheless, at some point I believe she wanted them because she was trying to find something that defines her. Constratingly, Mama and Maggie were sure of the meaning of the quilts since they keep them as a representation of her heritage, and use them what their relative made it for. All in all, this piece of literature/video, it is a great demonstration of how crucial is to remember and keep traditions to be us.
Her sister is not annoying. She is just changed by the education and wants the quilts to have something that represents her culture. She wants to be proud of her culture and not just take it for granted. Just like the quilts, she wants to show them off. Maggie wants to interact with her heritage and keep it for everyday use. Just like the quilts. These are two ways of treating your heritage, especially if you are afro-american.
@@daanoppel1818 Yeah, but education doesn't make you go home to your family and basically call your own sister stupid, out loud in so many words. I'm going to wager Dee (Wangero) was always a terrible person.
I am doing a literary analysis paper for college English class and I have several different stories/poems to choose from. I think this might be my chosen one. What a wonderful feel good story.
Thank you for posting this. I use this video every year for my ninth graders, and I was panicked when I could not find it last year. It is such a great short film. Thanks aagin
I caught different points on the story such the heritage as the main one because it is something that highlights throughout the story and it means that all we are now are those pieces that our ancestors gave us and all that we are now is everything that we can do, decide and chose to leave to our descendants, and those pieces that physically still live with us remaining about those beloved ones are sacred things that are kept for us because they have a great meaning instead of exhibit them as a triumph as Dee wanted to. Another remarkable aspect is the purity that Maggie has because she always respects her sister even when she is mistreating her verbally, all in all this literary piece is a master piece which offer great knowledge.
This story has a clearly remarkable message towards the importance of embracing heritage. Sometimes people may not feel related or that they do not fit into their family's lineage. They may have conflicts with where they come from, the way in which their ancestors used to live, or the decisions they made and influenced their own lives. Therefore, people try to erase their past and start building a new version of their lives. But the problem here is when they do not take into account those past experiences to enrich their vision of the world they want to construct. Not doing this; not considering their heritage as a fundamental part of themselves could result in falling into the same pattern they hate or despise so much. Besides, feeling proud of where we come from is a valuable thing since it allows us to tell others our story and reflect our truly being; otherwise, whether we get away from our heritage we would be living a superficial and fake-constructed life.
Imagine me going to my mother's house with some half-baked constructed notions of who I/we must be and tell her that _she_ doesn't understand her heritage when she's hand sewn clothing items from her ascending generation into a quilt. We just finished this text in my classes.
It's my fist encounter with this story its very interesting. It just amazing how some people blame ignorance on education. That's what the so called educated daughter has done
For me the video is about heritage and tradition. Two extremes are seen, one in which is to know the world in order to make their family history known and the other is to continue with what is established in the family nucleus in the family environment. Both have their positive and negative things, but in one way or another they highlight that interest in what is inherited, in family history. Additionally, the story focuses on black communities who unfortunately have had to suffer quite a bit of abuse against their culture by white communities.
Gratitude for the uploading. Immense pleasure after watching this movie. Got the point clearly. I have understood the plot from ur interpretation, That's why I am grateful to you forever. #satisfied.
I think the massage of the story was accept our heritage and our past. We cannot change our past but we can accept it and learn from it, not just take it as a simple heirloom (like Dee did), but it is some that goes beyond; although past should not be relived, we should learn to acknowledge it, and understand that we cannot get rid of it completely because that made us the person who we are now. We should question our past and know how to act in the present I think we cannot and should not live in the past and keep the same traditions of our ancestors but we should keep the heritage, and what is the difference? Past is history, it is freeze and cannot be changed, while heritage is changing without deny our past. Although our past does not exist now, it was something that marked us and formed us to the person of today, and that is something we need to accept. We cannot deny our past, it is part of our identity, and that is what heritage is: to keep alive that identity accepting and knowing it, without deforming ours. Heritage it is not to be identical to our ancestors or our past, heritage is embrace our past to understand what we are, who we are, where we come from, know the people that “constructed” us, to better understand and learn from them and from us. We can take as example the Maggie’s case, where her past formed her (and we understand why she is) a person with scars, fears and insecurities till the present. Dee is also molded by her past when she goes to the school, thanks to her mother and the church, and she now is very educated and she knows about the slavery and discrimination black people had suffered in the past. Nonetheless, she denies her past, and pretends to embrace it but her attempt ends up to be very superficial. And we could see that when she changes her name (because it was given by white men) and remember her ancestors ONLY when she is in contact with the MATERIAL things. She actually does not embrace her identity of the past actually, just want the past to be freeze and not relate with it.
