How is symbolism used in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"

The family artifacts
owned by Mama Johnson are used, symbolically, to show the characters' differing views of
heritage. Dee is newly interested in these artifacts, for which she's never before shown such
longing. She says,

"I never knew how lovely these
benches are. You can feel the rump prints [...]." Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed
over Grandma Dee's butter dish. "That's it!" she said. "I knew there was
something I wanted to ask you if I could have." She jumped up from the table and went over
in the corner where the churn stood [....]. "This churn top is what I need [....]. And I
want the dasher, too."

Dee wants these objects, but
it is Maggie who knows not only their stories but also who made them, what their nickname was,
when they made them, and so forth. And despite the fact that her family is still using these
items daily, Dee wants to take them to do "something artistic" with them. It's a
similar story with the family's quilts. Dee is terrified that Mama will give them to Maggie,
because Maggie would be "backward" enough to use them every day, and they would fall
apart. Dee wants to hang them on the wall, attempting to preserve them. For Maggie and Mama,
these objects are symbolic of their heritage, but they seem to feel that heritage is something
that is best kept in the present by keeping the objects in use, which reminds everyone of those
people to whom they're connected. Maggie knows how to quilt and can make more; it's as though
she honors her heritage by remembering the stories, by learning the traditions. Dee, on the
other hand, thinks of these objects as symbolic, and she thinks of heritage as something that is
past, that ought to be preserved rather than used; she thinks of the quilts as artistic rather
than objects meant to serve a purpose. It's a much colder, more distant kind of
remembrance.

Color is also used symbolically in the story to help
characterize Maggie and Dee. When Dee arrives, for example, she is wearing a bright dress. Mama
says, "There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my
whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out." Dee wears colors associated with
fire. Maggie, on the other hand, wears a "pink skirt and red blouse," the colors of
skin that's been burned. Maggie has "burn scars down her arms and legs" as a result of
the fire that consumed the family's house years ago. As a child, Dee "burned [her mother
and sister] with a lot of knowledge [they] didn't necessarily need to know," treating them
like "dimwits." It even seems possible, given Mama's description of events, that Dee
might have set the fire to the house that she "hated" so much. Figuratively,
certainly, Dee damages and burns others, making them feel small and slow and stupid. Maggie is
burned by Dee, by her condescension and derision. The colors associated with each daughter help
to illuminate their character.