Class divisions continue to exist and widen in American society. Traditionally class distinctions include such groups as the poor, the working-class, the middle-class, and the elite or ruling class. At various times other distinctions than economics add to class divisions such as race, gender, and sexuality. The short stories Everyday Use, PaulÆs Case, and the film The Age of Innocence, demonstrate the impact on class distinctions on those from a variety of classes. In all of these works, it can be shown that whatever artificial measures are used to distinguish class (i.e. race, economics, gender), they most always have a negative impact on members of each class.
In Everyday Use, for example, Dee desperately wants to avoid association with anything that reminds her of her humble origins, social class, and heritage. Her mother and sister are not affected by their heritage or class the way Dee is, but Dee fails to appreciate any of the positive aspects of her background. When she returns home, Dee wants to take with her the quilts made by her Grandma Dee. When told they are being saved for her sister MaggieÆs trousseau, Dee exclaims, ôMaggie canÆt appreciate these quilts! SheÆd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday useö (Walker 180). When she gets in a huff because Maggie gets the quilts, Dee is told she doesnÆt understand. When she asks what it is she does not understand, she is told, ôYour heritageö (Walker 181). The quilt is a symbol of the struggle and voice of the family, something Dee views as beneath her now. She tells her family they should try to ômake something of themselvesö (Walker 181).
In a similar manner, Paul in PaulÆs Case also desperately seeks to escape his class and heritage. He desperately wishes to distinguish himself from other residents of Cordelia Street and longs for the excitement and what he views as elitism of Carnegie Hall, Schenly, stock theater,
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