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Dee
Maggie, Mama’s younger daughter and Dee’s sister, is a timid, nervous, kind-hearted young woman. Compared to Dee, she is less intelligent and less beautiful, and has not received the education her sister has. Maggie suffers from a burn scar on her face, the result of a traumatic house fire several years before. Unlike her sister, Maggie has a close relationship with her mother. At the beginning of the story, Maggie seems anxious about Dee’s visit, asking Mama how her clothes suit her. When Dee insists on taking the family quilts, Mama decides to give them to Maggie instead, because she thinks Maggie will appreciate them better.
Maggie Quotes in Everyday Use
The Everyday Use quotes below are all either spoken by Maggie or refer to Maggie. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Everyday Use Quotes
How long ago was it the house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie’s arms sticking to me, her hair smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. And Dee…Why don’t you dance around the ashes? I’d wanted to ask her. She had hated that house so much.
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Mama, who is reminiscing before Dee arrives for her visit, describes the terrible house fire that burnt down their ancestral home several years ago. The memory of the fire, which Mama brings up several times throughout the story, clearly still terrorizes the family. Mama still “hears” the flames, experiencing a kind of synesthesia (a phenomenon where one’s senses become muddled).Notably, many of the material things from which Dee derives her sense of self (hair, clothing) were lost to Maggie in that fire, perhaps accounting for Maggie’s apathy toward these modes of self-expression. Maggie’s eyes reflect the flames as she burns, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque
She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.
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As Mama describes the various consequences of Dee’s transformation, she talks about the experience of Dee reading to her and to Maggie. Although Dee’s reading to her family might seem like it would be a loving, bonding activity, Mama’s description suggests that it was instead hurtful to herself and to Maggie. Mama describes Dee’s reading as “forcing words, lies” and keeping Mama and Maggie “trapped and ignorant underneath her voice,” essentially equating the way Dee read to them as a violent, oppressive act. Dee’s reading drew her family in only to reject them for their ignorance and inability to understand Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum
She stoops down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without making sure the house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie and the house.
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Dee, having just arrived at Mama and Maggie’s house, gets right down to the business of picture taking. But rather than talking pictures of the family interacting, or including herself or Hakim-a-barber in the photos, Dee insists on taking pictures of Mama and Maggie with their house, with Mama sitting and Maggie standing, and with a cow. In doing so, Dee seems to be posing the family as part of the rural landscape they live in, rather than people with dynamic lives. Such a photo, in which Mama is sitting and static, seems to fundamentally misrepresent the life of a Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaqu
Maggie can’t appreciate those quilts! ...She’s probably backward enough to put them into everyday use.
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Dee speaks this quote to Mama as she and Mama argue over whether Dee or Maggie should keep their grandmother’s hand-stitched quilts. Dee, who would like to hang them on her walls, believes she should keep them. Dee argues that Maggie is “backward enough” to put the quilts to “everyday use”—which is to say, to use them as blankets—as their grandmother presumably intended the quilts to be used. When Dee describes Maggie as “backward,” she essentially betrays her contempt of the very culture that she supposedly wants to venerate and preserve—the rural life that her ancestors come from, and that Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Und
‘You just don’t understand,’ she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car.
‘What don’t I understand?’ I wanted to know.
‘Your heritage,’ she said.
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This quote follows Dee and Mama’s argument over the quilts, and Mama’s decision to give them to Maggie. After all that has transpired, Dee’s assertion that Mama and Maggie do not “understand” their heritage is extremely ironic—since Walker has, by this point in the story, made it abundantly clear that it is Dee who is out of touch with her family’s way of life. Dee’s utter lack of understanding contrasts with her rigorous education, suggesting that “understanding” and education might be two distinct systems of knowledge. “Understanding” seems to be what Mama has—a genuine connection with her family’s customs and Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi nec
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Maggie Character Timeline in Everyday Use
The timeline below shows where the character Maggie appears in Everyday Use. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Everyday Use
...like a living room, with the ground swept clean like a floor. Mama’s younger daughter, Maggie, is also waiting for Dee. Mama describes Maggie as “homely,” “hopeless,” and “ashamed,” and predicts...
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Maggie, Mama’s younger daughter, interrupts Mama’s musings, asking her mother how she looks in her pink...
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Mama notes that Maggie’s submissiveness first became a problem after their old house burned down. She wonders how long...
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...wasn’t only the house Dee hated. Mama remembers how, as a child, Dee also hated Maggie. Once Mama and their church raised money for Dee’s education, however, Dee’s resentment lessened. Still,...
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...she contrasts herself with Dee, whose education allows her to be critical of her environment. Maggie, unlike her mother, is literate, and reads to Mama in their spare time, but she...
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...married or not), Hakim-a-Barber, arrive at the house. As they pull up in their car, Maggie tries to retreat into the house, but Mama stops her. Dee steps out of the...
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...saying “Wa-su-zo Tean-o!” Hakim-a-barber follows suit, saying “Asalamakim” (an Arabic greeting). He tries to hug Maggie and, in doing so, startles her.
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After they say hello, Dee retrieves a camera from her car and takes pictures of Maggie and Mama with their house. She makes sure to photograph Mama and Maggie together with...
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...Buddy. Dee asks for the dasher as well, which she believes Uncle Buddy also whittled. Maggie, however, knows better, and gently corrects Dee, saying it was Aunt Dee’s first husband, Stash,...
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...that she cannot give her the quilts because she promised to give the quilts to Maggie for her marriage to John Thomas, a local man. Dee, affronted, argues that Maggie can’t...
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Unwillingly to back down, Dee argues that, by using them as blankets, Maggie would wear the quilts out in five years. Mama, however, shrugs Dee’s point off, saying...
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Meanwhile, Maggie comes and stands by the door. She tells Mama that Dee can have the quilts,...
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Mama thinks hard, looking at Maggie, taking in her snuff-filled lip, her burn-scarred hands hidden in the folds of her too-big...
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Dee, enraged, exits the house and walks towards her car. As Maggie and Mama follow her, Dee turns and tells them they don’t understand their “heritage.”
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Dee then kisses Maggie goodbye and tells her she “ought to try and make something” of herself, since it’s...
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Mama and Maggie watch Dee’s car pull away. Then the two of them sit in the front of...
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