Comparing Maggie and Dee in Everyday Use - Essay Example

     Dee is the good-looker, who is gifted with a fair complexion, voluptuous figure, good hair, and dainty feet. Her dress, in striking shades of yellow and orange, and her confident glide of a walk, reflect her personality and, along with the gold earrings and bracelets, call out loudly for attention. Her hair, with its deliberately accentuated African style, is a defiant statement of identity. Maggie, with her burnt and scarred limbs and thin body, is a poor contrast to her attractive sister. She is dressed in a nondescript pink skirt and a red blouse. She does not walk, but shuffles, “chin on chest, eyes on the ground.” She has a “dopey, hangdog look,” which is further accentuated by her use of checkerberry snuff. The sisters’ physical appearances are almost caricatures of their personalities.

     Dee’s personality exhibits an aggressive confidence and an assertive, individual style.  She can “look anyone in the eye” and not backs down. She is resolute, well-spoken, and spirited. She adamantly faces life on her own terms. Even her style of reading is pitiless and more of an imposition than a narration. She is as “sweet as a bird” when she customarily gets her own way. When thwarted, her anger and hatred show through. It is revealing that she has caustic humor, “that erupted like bubbles in lye,” and many admirers, but no friends. On the other hand, Maggie’s personality reflects her rather fatalistic acceptance of her inferior standing. Her scars, of which she is ashamed, have further undermined her confidence. She is shy, “stands hopelessly in corners,” hides behind doors, and is nervous of strangers, backing away sweating and trembling in alarm from ‘Asalamalakim.’ When Maggie reads, she “stumbles along good-naturedly”: the sister’s respective reading styles reflect their personalities.

     Dee’s attitude towards her identity as a black woman is to flaunt it as a badge of defiance to the world. She takes pictures of the house and her family as if they were curiosities. For all the ostentatious hairstyle and name, she hates the house and her background. Her change of name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo is but a rejection of her childhood. “She’s dead,” she says of the old Dee. She appropriates the churner top and dasher, not as parts of her life, but as pretentious “artistic” curios. Similarly, she covets the quilts as fashion statements with considerable monetary value as antiques.

     While the attractive, extroverted Dee, with her avaricious, confrontational style, maybe the successful sister, it is the unassuming, homely Maggie, who remains the guardian of their heritage. Dee will flaunt the quilts as detached objects of art, while Maggie will make them a part of her everyday life. It is Maggie who knows who made the dasher and learned to quilt from her grandmother and aunt. It is Maggie who truly understands and cherishes her heritage: she lives it every day, while Dee exhibits it as an exotic, pseudo accessory to her personality.