is still superficial. When she wants to take the quilts, she wants to display them. Maggie, on the other hand, would use them as they were intended.

Connecting with her African heritage is admirable, but not if its purpose is a superficial display. When Dee abandons her American familial heritage, this is a symbolic break. Walker uses the metaphor of the quilts to show how families are connected. Quilts might be made from various scraps of clothing, including ancestors' clothing. These scraps are then connected, and this symbolizes the connection of current family with previous generations. Dee doesn't appreciate her family history and this is shown through how she views the quilts. She wants to display them. She doesn't want to use them as blankets, and thus avoids practically and intimately connecting with her family and ancestors.

The central conflict of Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" is complex.  The narrator/mother and Maggie represent traditional black women and family, what they in fact are.  Dee represents what some think black women should become.  As such, the mother could be considered the protagonist and Dee the antagonist.  The mother decides the conflict when she stands up to Dee and insists that the two heirloom quilts should be kept for Maggie as was promised.  Maggie, in the mother's view, is more deserving.  She will put the quilts to "everyday use," not display them as a sign of her heritage as Dee wants to do.  The mother and Maggie have dignity in their own right.

I'm afraid I cannot really comment on the foil in the play.  I don't really see one.  You could say Maggie handles herself as one should and Dee does not, but they are so naturally different a case for Maggie being a foil seems to me to be a stretch.

The major characters in the story are:

Mama, the narrator. Mama is the mother of two daughters, and the story is told from her perspective. She is the most important voice in it, because it is her understanding of the situation that we see. A black woman in middle age, Mama is large, "big boned," and physically strong, able to kill a hog on her own. She knows she is darker and fatter than her elder daughter, Dee, would like her to be; however, she is very confident in herself. Her primary concerns seem to be for her younger daughter, Maggie.

Maggie, the younger of the two daughters, is a "nervous" and retiring girl who has always lived in the shadow of her sister. She is being courted by a boy she will almost certainly marry, and she speaks little and is plainer and less educated than her elder sister.

Dee, the older daughter, is an interesting character. She is a forceful personality—her mother thinks she once burned down the house they lived in because she hated it so much. She imposes her views upon her family, believing that black people today should embrace their true heritage and reject their recent past. Clever and well-dressed, she wants nice things for herself. She wants to take quilts to hang on the wall as a symbol of this. She has changed her name to Wangero.

Minor characters in the story include:

Asalamalakim/Hakimabarber, a "short, stocky" man Dee brings with her when she comes to visit her mother and sister.

John Thomas, the boy Maggie is going to marry.

Grandma Dee and Aunt Dicie, Mama's relatives who contributed to making the quilts in the story.

In "Everyday Use," the major characters include Mama (Mrs. Johnson), Dee, and Maggie. The minor characters include Grandma Dee and Hakim-a-barber. Mama is the protagonist and narrator of the story, so she is the most important character in the story. Throughout the story, Mama goes on a journey of coming to an understanding about the value of her two daughters and her values regarding family heritage. Dee and Maggie are also major characters because they create the dynamic of conflict in the story: Dee has always been given her way because people assume she is knowledgeable, while Maggie has been overlooked largely because she is not bright. In addition to the major characters, the story also includes minor characters that represent thematic concerns in the story. Grandma Dee is a pillar of the family's heritage, while Hakim-a-barber represents Dee's new affinity for African cultural heritage.

In "Everyday Use," from one perspective, Mrs. Johnson gains the most from the experience of Dee's visit. For in the end, Mrs. Johnson wins the gratitude of her daughter Maggie and her devotion to her mother who has shown her that she is, indeed, of value to her. She is also richer for her act of giving the quilts to Maggie in a display of her love as she and Maggie become closer.

At first, the mother has certain expectations before her college-educated daughter arrives, hoping their meeting might be like one of those television programs in which a mother is reunited with a daughter who embraces her with loving tears. But, when Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo arrives, Mrs. Johnson is greatly disappointed in her daughter's refusal to use her given name, her appearance and attitude about her race, as well as her rejection of the family traditions.

Clearly, Wangero's perspective and that of her mother and Maggie is at odds. When Wangero asks for certain family "heirlooms" to put upon display, Mrs. Johnson tries to persuade her daughter into taking others that were sewn by family members, Wangero insists upon the ones sewn by hand by Grandma. Mrs. Johnson tells her daughter,

"The truth is,...I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas.

"Maggie can appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use."

Mrs. Johnson refrains from telling Wangero how she had offered her daughter a quilt when the girl was in college, but it was refused because it was "old-fashioned, out of style." Then, when she hears her daughter say that she would hang the quilts on display as though this were the only thing to do with them, and her humble daughter Maggie says that her sister can have them. "I can remember Grandma Dee without them," Mrs. Johnson is struck to the heart: "...something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the bottom of my feet." 

This sudden realization of the soul and heart that Maggie possesses causes Mrs. Johnson to quickly hug Maggie to her, pull her into the other room, and deposit the quilts in her arms as the young woman stands amazed at this recognition of her value. This action causes Wangero to depart in anger. 

After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed.

Indeed, Mrs. Johnson is richer for having arrived at a deeper devotion for her daughter, with whom she shares the same values of family and tradition.