The Moral of the Story "Use"

The story "Use" was a very interesting story with an important moral.  The moral that I took away from this story was that a person's looks, abilities, and what's on the surface is not what makes them a better person than someone else.  The author, Alice Walker, persuades me to adopt this moral multiple times throughout the story.

First, Alice describes the two daughters in the story; Dee/Wangero, the older daughter, and Maggie.  Dee/Wangero is prettier, can read better, and is very stylish.  She was ashamed of her mother's house because it was small and ugly to her.  Dee wants nice things in her life like pretty dresses.  Maggie, on the other hand, was burned when their house caught on fire, and has burn scars.  She thinks she is ugly, and when she is around Dee she cowers and acts almost scared.  Maggie isn't very bright and knows it.  In the story, the narrator says that sometimes she dreams of being on a show where a child who has "made it" is surprised by her mother and father coming in from backstage to embrace the child.  She dreams of being on this show with Dee.  So far, you can tell that Dee is the prettier, more successful daughter.

Later, however, when Dee comes home to visit her mother and Maggie, she has changed her name to Wangero and has a man with her.  This is an example of how she is sort of separating herself from her family and her past.  She doesn't really care that much that the name Dee is a big part of her family, and has been in every generation of it as long as anyone can remember.  Also, inside the house, Dee/Wangero marvels at the lovely benches, Grandma Dee's butter dish, and the churn.  She wants to take the churn and dasher with her, but only because they are pretty and interesting.  They have no real meaning to her.  Maggie, however, understands that these things actually mean something, and speaks up to tell Dee/Wangero that the dasher was whittled from Aunt Dee's first husband.

The part of the story that the author uses the most to display this moral is at the end.  Dee tells her mother that she wants to take two quilts, the ones that were pieced by her grandma and quilted by her mother and aunt.  She wants these because she thinks it seems cool and more authentic. Dee/Wangero only wants the quilts to hang them, and they obviously show no real meaning to her.  Before she went to college her mom asked her if she wanted the quilts, and back then she dismissed them because they were old and out of style.  Maggie was promised these quilts, and would put them to use.  Maggie knows how to quilt herself and was taught by her grandma and aunt.  The quilts have a meaning to Maggie.  When Dee/Wangero was begging for the quilts, Maggie said she could have them.  She said that she could remember Grandma Dee without the quilts, showing that she saw the quilts as a way to remember the person who made them.

In the end, the mother realizes that Maggie is the daughter who really cares about her, and that she should receive the quilts no matter what.  What the mother did was the right thing to do, and this is what Alice is trying to teach the readers.  Maggie had better values than Dee/Wangero, and was the better daughter on the inside.  She cared more for her mother, and her family meant more to her.  By the end of this story, Alice Walker has fully persuaded me to adopt the moral that just because someone seems better on the surface, it doesn't mean they're better on the inside.