Character Analysis
Maggie is a little like Cinderella: always watching her sister have all the fun, but taking home the prize in the end. Except instead of Prince Charming, the prize is a couple of quilts.
But let's back up and take a good look at Maggie in the beginning of the story. Our narrator, as usual, describes her best:
Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to them? That is the way my Maggie walks. (9)
Maggie is someone who is barely recognized or even seen by the world. Quiet and withdrawn, she's hardly a presence even when she does manage to utter a complete sentence: "Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash," said Maggie so low you almost couldn't hear her (52). And when we learn that she's been like this "ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground"—well, we can't help but feel for this kid.
Poor Maggie's life seems like utter gloom and doom. In addition to being a burn victim, she's had little education. She has trouble reading and may even have a visual impairment. The narrator doesn't sugarcoat it:
Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good naturedly but can't see well. She knows she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed her by. (13)
Man, this girl has been dealt a rough hand.
But, hold up now: despite her weaknesses, Maggie's character has some significant strengths. Even though she hasn't been able to go away to school and learn the things her fancy-pants sister has, she has learned to quilt. On top of being a useful and practical skill, her ability to quilt is something she shares with her ancestors, which connects her strongly to them (jealous, Dee?). She also seems also to have a true, un-superficial sense of family or, to borrow Dee's word, "heritage," as she tells her mother that Dee can have the quilts because she "can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts" (74).
In a way then, Maggie might actually be better off than Princess Dee. And the best part is that by the end of the story, after she's watched her big sister act like a huge baby throwing a temper tantrum, she seems to know that. As Dee gets ready to leave, the narrator observes:
[Dee] put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and her chin. Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real smile, not scared. (82-83)
So Maggie gets the last laugh—or at least the last smile.