1. Mother’s Identity “Identity” is an important concept in Western culture. There are many views on the origins of identity. British scholar Barker believes that “political struggles, philosophy and linguistic research made identity a central topic in cultural studies in the 1990s” ① 165. Another scholar, Friedman, believes that “identity is the vane of European and American culture...” ③234. Others, such as Professor Hall, believe that identity already existed as early as the era of Enlightenment philosophy. After all, enlightenment is reflection on human self and social existence. Regardless of the views of each faction, there is a certain trend in the development of identity models, namely "the subject-centered enlightenment identity model - the society-centered social identity model - the postmodern decentered identity model." ” ⑧ 4 65. The mother's national and racial identity is mainly reflected in her lifestyle and changes in her attitude towards the two sisters. The mother is a large, big-boned woman. Her life is very simple and she basically maintains the characteristics of a black person: she wears a pullover when working during the day and flannel pajamas when sleeping at night; she works outdoors all day, breaking ice cubes, fetching water for washing, and even dares to eat freshly slaughtered meat. Pork liver is cut from the pig, still steaming, and then cooked over an open fire. This self-narrative description is not only vivid and concrete, but also very vivid. From manners, actions to clothing, we see a true and typical image of African American women: strong, strong-willed and masculine. My mother is hard-working and capable, has not received much education, is poor but optimistic. Her different attitudes towards her two daughters symbolize the different perspectives of African Americans’ recognition of national culture. In the face of national and cultural identity, she is a black man who has turned from confusion to sobriety. She was confused because she did not know how to reconcile the relationship with the painful culture; she was awake because she truly understood the meaning of culture and heritage, and finally made the right choice for the ownership of the heritage. Mother's feelings for Dee are complicated. She was proud of Dee's success, personal abilities and good looks, but resented her selfishness. Although she saw that her daughter was not dressed in a traditional African dress, even though it was dazzling, she still thought it looked good; her daughter greeted her, and although she did not understand, she accepted it; Dee changed her name, and although her mother was disappointed, she also tried to learn it. Give her a new name. All of this tells us that although my mother knew nothing about the black cultural nationalist movement, she worked hard to cooperate and try to understand her. But when she discovered that Dee selfishly wanted to take away the family's daily belongings without knowing their history and the emotions they contained, her mother was completely disappointed with Dee's abandonment of tradition. Towards Maggie, this symbol of painful culture, my mother’s initial attitude was to deliberately ignore and avoid her. A fire burned Maggie and left her mother with indelible pain. The daughter put on a dress and asked her mother: "How do I look?" ⑦ 96 In fact, she wanted to get her mother's attention and affirmation. The mother avoided her question. In the story, the mother has this sentence, "I thought she also hated Maggie." ⑦ 97 The mother was disappointed with her, and even felt ashamed of her. The mother had never hugged her poor little daughter before the incident. The poor mother and daughter want to warm each other, but they can't get close because of that painful history. In the end, it was Maggie who brought her mother to consciousness. "Let her take it, Mom," "I can remember Grandma Dee without those quilts." ⑦ 103 Maggie's words made my mother wake up from a dream. "I stared at her closely. She stood there, putting a pair of scarred hands in the folds of her skirt." ⑦ 103 The mother finally looked squarely at Maggie. She saw the true cultural heritage, which made her proud rather than ashamed. of cultural heritage. The mother's gender identity is primarily reflected in the details of her life.

Mother has rough hands that can do a man's work. She can kill a pig and clean it up as mercilessly as a man. She can even kill and clean up a calf by herself. The reader does not know if there are any male characters in the family. The mother can work like a man, become the backbone of the family, and assume the dual role of mother and father. This is a subtle attack on male chauvinism. A woman doesn't just have to be in church, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom, she can hold up the whole sky. This indicates the mother's gender identity. 2. Dee’s Identity Dee’s ethnic and racial identity issues are mainly reflected in the gap in attitude towards her mother and sister. When their family's old house caught fire twelve years ago, Dee expected it to be reduced to ashes along with their generational way of life. When she was still studying in her hometown, she often severely forced her mother and sister to listen to her reading, infiltrating and forcing the entire text and lies about white people's living habits on her mother and sister. By the time she was sixteen, Dee had "developed her own style, and she knew what fashion was" ⑦ 97. She once actively pursued a boy. When Dee came home for the holidays this time, she was well educated, had good hair, and had a slim and plump figure. When she walked into the house, "she was wearing a floor-length skirt. The skirt was loose and swayed in the wind. The color of the skirt was also dazzling, with large patches of yellow and orange, so bright that it could reflect the sun's rays. She was wearing The gold earrings hang straight down to the shoulders, and the bracelets on the arms jingle as the arms swing."⑦ 99. After entering the house, I couldn't wait to take out my camera and snap photos one after another, trying my best to include the house, mother, sister, and cows. Why is Dee so keen on taking such photos? Does she cherish all of this? When Dee went to school in the city, her mother gave her these two quilts, but she rejected them because they were too old. This time Dee suddenly found a quilt when he came home and asked to hang the quilt on the wall as an art decoration. When her mother said she had promised the quilt to Maggie, she exclaimed as if she had been struck by a bee: "Maggie doesn't understand the value of quilts. She might be stupid enough to use them as ordinary quilts." Maggie will put them on the bed and use them every day. In that case, after five years, these two quilts will become tatters." ⑦ 102-103. Unlike her mother and sister, she uses the items inherited from her family (stools, tables, tableware and quilts) as handicrafts for home decoration. Dee believes that traditional cultural heritage should be cherished and not used as ordinary objects, which would destroy their artistic value. In their struggle for social status, rights, and dignity, African Americans look toward both the past and the future. They look for roots in history, discover the past glory of their nation, look for cultural origins from the heritage of their ancestors, and look for passion, pride and strength. This is Dee's hope, she uses blurred identity to get closer to her national culture. In the end, Dee was touched by her mother's firm defense of Maggie's quilt ownership. She said to her sister, "Maggie, you should be able to make a difference. The times we live in are very different from the past, but according to what you and your mother are doing now, Judging from this living condition, you will never realize this.” ⑦ 103. Dee's ethnoracial identity issues are also reflected in her own name change. Dee's name was inherited from the previous generation. In order to commemorate the deceased relatives, it is a tradition and honor to take their names. Dee, however, believed that the name was given by her oppressors, changed her name to the long and weird "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo", and used some Muslim and African greetings with her boyfriend, such as: "wa-su- zo-tean—o” to express independence from tradition. It is a pity that Dee only maintains her dignity through these superficial articles, but deep down in her heart, she has no respect for the culture of her own nation. Otherwise, she would not have forced other people's living habits, ways of doing things, and moral principles into the minds of her mother and sister Maggie.

So in a sense, Dee is a victim of her education (because the textbooks were written by white people). According to research by Helga Hoel (1999), the first sentence Dee greeted his mother, "Wa-su-zo-tean-o" is Ugandan, which is equivalent to "Good morning!" It can also be translated as: I hope you slept last night. Well done. Even though I knew my mother couldn't understand, I still greeted her like this. It can be seen that her purpose is just to show off her knowledge and fashion. Second, the long skirt she wore. Her flowing, dazzling gown is indeed African, but only East African and Muslim women wear such floor-length gowns. In addition, there are fashionable styles sold exclusively to tourists in tourist areas. The truly traditional African women's clothing should be a two-piece skirt or a skirt with a clear waistline. Third, her new name. According to her, "I couldn't bear to be named after those who oppressed me." But her mother could trace the history of the name back to before the Civil War. Mother was named after the Johnson family ancestry and tradition. Dee had no idea of ??her origins and assumed that the origin of the name was white, and according to Helga Hoel's research, "Wangero-Lee-wanika Kemanjo" was a combination of misspelled names from several East African tribes. Fourth, her request. She wanted to take away the churn lids and churn sticks that were still in use at home and use them as decorations, but she didn't know the history of these household items. It can be seen that Dee knows very little about the newly adopted African culture, and is equally ignorant of the African American cultural heritage they possess in real life. Her approval was superficial. 3. Maggie’s mixed identity Maggie is physically weak and plain-looking. After a fire, she had burn scars all over her body. She always kept her chin close to her chest, stared at the ground, and dragged her feet when she walked. Like her mother, she clings to certain characteristics of the black self, consciously or unconsciously. This is how her mother described her: “Have you ever seen a lame animal, say a dog, being crushed by a careless man who had money to buy a car, and then turned sideways towards a man who said nothing about it? What does it look like when the person who knows nothing about it but cares for it in every possible way walks away?" ⑦ 96 She envied everything about Dee. In life, Maggie is always passive, not even as humble but assertive as her mother. When Dee went home with her boyfriend and her boyfriend wanted to hug Maggie, she became extremely nervous, "stepped back," "trembled all over," and "sweat dripped down her chin" ⑦ 99-100. Feminists believe that lack of self-confidence is a major obstacle for women to find themselves and revive their sense of self. Maggie did not realize this. She was afraid of the outside world, closed herself in a mental "prison", and put mental shackles on herself. She may not have considered her black identity at all, and she may not have considered her womanhood at all. She only exists after feeling inferior. She didn't dare to fight for what was hers, and just gave in: "'Let her take away the quilt, mom.' She spoke like she was used to someone who never wins, or like there was nothing worth giving to her. "Like" ⑦ 103. This is Maggie's life: never fighting for anything they want even if it belongs to her. When conflicts arise, she always gives in and endures, taking everything for granted. Maggie's hands were as weak as a fish, and probably as cold as a fish. She looks forward to but is afraid of facing the power movement directly. She spoke to her sister in an almost inaudible voice and washed dishes in the kitchen after dinner, deliberately delaying to come out early. She looked forward to it, but found that the cultural movement did not bring her a solution to her dilemma. Her avoidance and awe of Dee symbolizes the helplessness of painful culture in the face of cultural movements. With the help of her mother, Maggie finally owns a hundred-sodium quilt. This is her first victory in life and the first step in awakening her self-awareness. She smiles with "genuine joy" ⑦ 104 from the bottom of her heart, not from the outside. There is no doubt that she is the ideal heir to this family's culture and tradition. This is why Walker has his mother take the quilt from Dee's hands at the end of the novel and give it to Maggie.

This is the mother's choice and the writer's own choice. 4. Walker’s Identity Issue In the article, Walker uses clues such as “Johnny Carson” and “quilt” to tell readers when the story takes place: the late 1960s and early 1970s. This period, as well as the entire 1960s, was a very important period for the author and all African Americans. The vigorous civil rights movement was everything to Walker, a civil rights activist at the time. Black issues such as the black movement, black rights, and black status were the center of her life. As a black person, she needs to identify with her own culture, but identification cannot be done by searching for her roots, changing her name, or changing her clothes like Dee did. As a woman, she also needs to gain recognition. In the article "Grandma's Daily Possessions", in order to realize racial and national identity, Walker uses symbols to make Dee represent the superficial black cultural activists, and Maggie to represent the backward black culture and existence that were once exploited by the slavery system, so that Mother represents the average black person. Ordinary black people chose Maggie as their cultural successor, and everything was settled. Emphasize black rights but not black power, emphasize black African culture but not ignore American culture. This is Walker’s ethnoracial identity. By shaping the three female characters in the work, Walker realizes her own female identity. As a black woman, Walker inevitably has her own attitudes toward her cultural gender. In the novel, all the main characters are set by Walker as women, while men are absent. We don’t know who the father is, but we know that the mother can work like a man and assume the role of both parents. Is this the black society? Women's status improves, while men are absent? Wen Junchao (School of Foreign Languages, Xuchang University, Xuchang, Henan 461000)

Hope to adopt