Everyday Use Maggie Character

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One of the main characters in the short story “Everyday Use” written by Alice Walker is a girl named Maggie. This character has a very unique personality because of the different situations she has to deal with. She is self conscious, quiet, and has many physical disabilities due to a house fire in which she suffered severe burns as a child. Maggie’s sister Dee also has a large impact on who she is as a person. She is jealous of her sister in almost every aspect causing her to have a large amount of envy for Dee. Because of Maggie’s personality and actions, she has a great effect on how the other characters develop throughout the story.
Maggie envy's her sister primarily because of her looks, intelligence, and her relationship with Mama. In the beginning of the short …show more content…
The problem with this is that Mama had already promised them to Maggie. At this point, Maggie attempts to make her first move at standing up to Dee. As soon as she hears them discussing this, she slams the kitchen door and runs right for them. Maggie stands in the doorway for a moment until Mama finally notices her. She thinks to herself that she has always been second to Dee so why would anything be different now. So instead of fighting for the quilts, she tries to earn Dee’s approval. She says, “she can have them, Mama, I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (Walker). Until this point, Maggie is not really the one to voice her opinion about anything. Mama stares at Maggie for a moment until something hit her. She realized how much those quilts meant to Maggie so she did something she had never done before. She grabbed Maggie, began hugging her, and took the quilts straight from dee’s hands. At this point, the characters of both Maggie and Mama completely changed. For the first time Mama treated her fairly and with respect while Maggie felt that somebody finally understood
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