How does Mama's character change at the climax of "Everyday Use"?

When Mama tells Dee that she's already promised the family quilts to Maggie, Dee actually calls Maggie "backward" because Maggie would put the quilts to "everyday use." This is precisely what Mama would want her to do. She recalls that she offered a quilt to Dee before Dee left for college, and Dee had refused. While Dee yells at Mama, Mama can hear Maggie at the door. "[She] could almost hear the sound [Maggie's] feet made as they scraped over each other." Maggie says that Dee can have the quilts because she can remember her grandmother without them. She speaks "like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her." When Mama looks at Maggie, she sees that "This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work." It is at this moment that Mama has her epiphany. She says,

When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout.

She snatches the quilts from Dee and dumps them into Maggie's lap. Mama seems to have realized how very unfair it is that Maggie is so used to giving way to Dee, that Maggie may doubt her own value in the world because Dee has always gotten whatever she wanted regardless of Maggie or what Maggie wants. It is wrong that this is how Maggie "knew God to work," and so Mama quickly corrects this, and we see this change in both Mama's and Maggie's contentment in the end. Dee leaves angry, but "Maggie smiled . . . But a real smile, not scared." And the two of them "sat there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed." Mama has a new appreciation for Maggie, and they can feel content with one another in a way they never have now that Mama has learned to value Maggie.

Which character undergoes change at the end of "Everyday Use"?

The conclusion of "Everyday Use" suggests that it is Maggie who has undergone a change. In the story's beginning and throughout much of the narrative, it seems that since she is the one who has stayed behind with her mother at home while Dee has gone out into the wider world, Maggie is in some way pitiable. Maggie looks at Dee and "she thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that 'no' is a word the world never learned to say to her." However, when their mother stands up for Maggie and takes the quilt away from Dee, Maggie understands that she has value in their mother's eyes in a way that Dee perhaps never will achieve. Maggie's humility and goodness are rewarded and Dee finally hears the word "no." When Dee and Hakim-a-barber are driving away, Maggie smiles "a real smile, not scared," and perhaps gains a new understanding of her place in the family.

Mrs. Johnson, the narrator, changes at the end of the story. Her daughter, Dee, comes home from college with her boyfriend. Dee has taken a new African name in her attempt to discover her African heritage. Dee doesn't realize she is denying her real heritage, since she was named for her aunt. She wants to take the things that her mother and sister, Maggie, still use on an everyday basis to decorate her home.

Maggie is overwhelmed by Dee and the new life Dee has established for herself. Maggie still lives in poverty with her mother. When Dee wants to take the quilts as examples of folk art, Mrs. Johnson takes them from Dee and gives them to Maggie. This is a change in Mrs. Johnson's feelings toward her daughters. She realizes that Maggie is the one who truly understands and appreciates her heritage and the connections with her ancestors.