attached to the quilts because they make her think of Grandma Dee. Thus, although the woman is dead, she represents the cherished family presence that lives on in Maggie's and her mother's connection to the past.

Mama is a fair narrator. She does not show favortism. She realizes that Dee does not appreciate the fact that she has her grandmother Dee's namesake. Dee has changed her name. She is so consumed with her African heritage until she has forgotten what her grandmother Dee represents.

Mama is a fair narrator. She just reports the facts. She realizes Dee is caught up in some African heritage that is really so distant until it does not truly belong to Dee. She allows Dee to have the butter churn top. She wants Dee to have something. 

Mama does seem to sympathize with Maggie as far as the quilts are concerned, but she does this because Dee has already been given an education. Mama seems to question whether that education has made Dee think she is superior to Maggie. As narrator, Mama would never allow Dee to show herself more superior to Maggie. Dee received the education. Maggie deserves the quilts. 

A passage where Mama tells the reader about herself can be found towards the beginning of this short story just after Mama relays her dream where she is on a TV program with her daughter, Dee. After presenting herself in the way that she would like to be seen in her imagination, this is then contrasted with a direct and clear description of what she is really like:

In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mecilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day...

Mama is a woman who is defined by the hardship and tough circumstances that she has had to endure. She has needed to  learn how to do jobs such as break ice and kill a hog that normally men would do, and as a result she has "man-working" hands. She is clearly a woman who has not been pampered, and because of her challenging circumstances fat is something that is viewed as helping her keep warm rather than a negative quality. This of course is very different from her imagined self, which, tellingly, she reveals to be "the way my daughter would want me to be." This tells the reader that there is some conflict between Mama and daughter, as who Mama is and what she looks like is obviously not acceptable to Dee. There are numerous passages in this short story which reveal to the reader information about Mama, and this response has examined one of these. Try reading the story and identifying other similar passages, and considering what these add to the reader's understanding of Mama.

Mama Johnson is resourceful, strong, kind, and loving. One might argue that she is the type of mother that everybody should have. She is quite at peace with her lot in life, accustomed to the challenges of rural living and not overly ambitious or desirous of greater things for her life. She is thick-skinned, which serves her well when Dee arrives and begins to criticize her home and just about everything in it.

What Mama Johnson lacks in the sophistication and glamor of her eldest daughter she makes up for in loyalty and compassion. Rather than feeling the need to embrace her African roots in the way Dee has, Mama is content with her roots planted firmly in the home she shares with her other daughter, Maggie.

The fact that Dee was able to go to school in Augusta was thanks to Mama's dedication to raising the money that would allow it. We see this dedication again when Maggie tries to leave when Dee arrives and Mama stops it. She wants to do everything in her power to ensure a harmonious visit with both her daughters.

Mama is the kind of person who stands up for what is right, which we see when she refuses to let Dee take her grandmother's quilts to make them showpieces in her home when Maggie needs them for practical reasons.

In "Everyday Use," Mama's private thoughts occur at the beginning of the story as she imagines what her life would be like if she could be the kind of mother whom Dee would want.  Mama imagines herself on a talk show like the Johnny Carson Show, embracing Dee, and Dee pinning an orchid on her dress.  But these private thoughts are simply fiction, and Mama then goes on to describe the reality of their lives.  Dee has always wanted "nice things," and Mama is a large, rough woman who is more suited to working in the fields than she is to doing any of the book-learning that Dee values.  Mama does not tell anyone about her private imaginings, which she later abandons when she realizes that all along, she has been misguided in the type of attention that she has given her daughters.

A strong case can be made that the mother in Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” makes the right decision when she chooses, at the end of the story, to give the quilts to Maggie rather than to Dee. Here are some possible arguments in support of the mother’s decision:

• The quilts have already been explicitly promised to Maggie; Maggie therefore has some legitimate right to them.
• The quilts have been promised to Maggie as a wedding present; they therefore are not a minor gift but a gift of major symbolic significance.
• The mother is a religious woman whose conscience would be troubled if she broke a promise to her needy daughter.
• Maggie is the daughter who seems closest to her mother and who therefore deserves the quilts as a kind of recompense for her loyalty.
• The fact that Maggie is willing to give the quilts to Dee shows Maggie’s generosity – a quality Dee lacks and a quality in Dee that deserves to be respected and rewarded.
• The fact that Maggie is willing to give the quilts to Dee shows that Maggie is used to losing in life; the gift of the quilts to Maggie is therefore a kind of symbolic form of justice, a righting of a balance that has, for too long, been tipped in one direction.
• The mother has an inner conviction (almost a religious intuition) that she is doing the right thing by giving the quilts to Maggie:

. . . 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.

• The mother’s decision to give the quilts to Maggie helps strengthen her relationship with this daughter: “I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me . . . .”
• Maggie seems pleased to have been given the quilts; Dee, on the other hand, does not seem especially bothered to have lost them.

This is, of course, a matter of personal opinion. The decision that Mama makes in the story is that she gives the family's hand-stitched quilts to Maggie, though Dee (Wangero) asks for them. Maggie is getting married soon to John Thomas, Mama says, and will likely get more use out of them. This decision outrages Dee who says that Maggie would not sufficiently appreciate their ancestors' quilts:

"Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use."

Mama responds that she hopes Maggie will do just that, seeing the quilts as the ancestors intended—objects that are to be appreciated for how practical and useful they are. Meanwhile, Mama recalls that she had offered Dee a quilt when she went away to college but Dee then told her mother that she did not want them, for "they were old-fashioned, out of style."

Personally, I agree with Mama's decision. In the context of the story, Dee's fascination with quilting developed as a result of her turn toward Afro-centrism. We know this based on her style of dress—lots of "yellows and oranges," gold earrings hanging down to her shoulders, and bracelets "dangling and making noises"—as well as her new name, "Wangero," and her greeting, "Asalamalakim." Personal style, Mama narrates, has always been important to Dee, mainly to distinguish herself from her simple, rural upbringing. This attention to style often caused her to look down on her family, particularly her sister, Maggie.

Furthermore, Dee's opinions and tastes fluctuate over time. Maggie, on the other hand, embodies a constancy and faithfulness to her family and its traditions, which make her more deserving of the quilts.

Mama's perspective certainly influences the reader, both in general and in particular, to view her daughters in a particular way.  Maggie is the victim, the shy one; she "will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe."  Mama describes Maggie as slow and sort of pitiful, like a lame dog that hopes for kindness from anyone.  We are thus prepared for Maggie to be weak, without really having a sense of her goodness. 

On the other hand, Dee, Mama says, "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."  It seems that Dee has attempted to assert her intellectual superiority of over her family for a long time, and given Mama's dream of a television reunion, it sounds like Dee has kept away for quite a while, likely out of a sense of embarrassment.  Therefore, we are prepared for Dee to be a little standoffish and even snobby when she arrives.  It seems as though Mama, then, paints a more accurate picture of Dee because she doesn't really seem to appreciate Maggie's merits until the story's end.

Mama is a very strong character.  She has endured much in her life and is stronger because of it.  Despite her meager living quarters and having very little belongings, she has everything she needs, including the love of her daughters (even though Dee is out of touch with reality about her heritage).  The way, for example, that she reacts to Dee's visit and all of Dee's condescending comments, etc., simply proves that Mama has much patience and that she is very strong for being able to accept that Dee is not going to change and no matter how much she might WANT to change Dee, it will not happen.  Mama knows her daughter very well (Dee) and realizes the futility of trying to change her.