that Maggie can make some more.

Let's look at the answer choices and see which one best describes Mama.

She is certainly not cruel. She loves both of her daughters. She has a special empathy for Maggie because of her disfigurement, her shyness, her slowness, and the fact that they live together and interact constantly. She doesn't understand Dee as well because Dee has managed to leave their simple lifestyle for one more sophisticated. However, her daydreams about meeting Dee on a TV show demonstrate her respect for what Dee has accomplished. The only time she opposes Dee is in the matter of the quilts, but this is justified because the quilts are already promised to Maggie.

Mama is not self-conscious. She knows she is poor, overweight, and lives a simple life, but she shows no awkwardness in describing it. She is content with who she is and where she lives.

She is not fragile, which means easily breakable. She has lived through adversity and hardship and is still strong and healthy.

The correct answer to this question is that Mama is tough. She expresses this clearly and gives several examples of her toughness in this passage:

I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing. I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall.

We see from these examples that Mama, the narrator, is doubtlessly tough.