How we cite our quotes: Paragraph
Quote #1
Maggie 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. She thinks her sister has held life in the palm of one hand, that 'no' is a word the world never learned to say to her. (2)
So check it out: this quotation does double duty. Not only does it give us a really good idea about what Maggie and Dee's relationship is like right off the bat, it also shows how sensitive the narrator is to what her daughter is thinking and feeling. Sentences in short stories sometimes work harder because they're, well, shorter, so we should always keep our eyes peeled for stuff like this when we're reading them.
Quote #2
You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has 'made it' is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage. (A pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to curse out and insult each other?) (3)
Clearly this story was written before Jerry Springer.
Quote #3
On TV mother and child embrace and smile into each other's faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen these programs.
Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV program of this sort. (3-4)
Sigh. The narrator wants Dee to recognize the sacrifices she's made for her so badly that the lady fantasizes about it in her spare time, which is pretty sad. Do you think she'll continue to have this dream after the story ends (you know, like, if this character continued to live on in some fictional universe)?
Quote #4
[On television] I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up with my quick and witty tongue. (5)
Assuming the narrator is right, why would Dee want her mother to be a skinny, sassy, shiny-haired woman with skin like pancake batter? What does this tell us about Dee?
Quote #5
I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised the money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She 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 […] Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand." (12)
Wait a minute—the narrator spends her time and energy fundraising with the church so that Dee could go to a fancy school and in return Dee treats her to this awful story-hour? Some thanks that is. It's a pretty tragic irony that the narrator has done so much to make sure Dee could have the education she herself missed out on only to discover that Dee turns around and uses that education to belittle the narrator and Maggie.
Quote #6
"You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie," I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We called her "Big Dee" after Dee was born. (28)
So we all know that Dee wants to give her oppressors a big kick in the teeth by changing her name to Wangero… But is her name change a snub to the black members of her family with whom she shares the name and thus a kind of severing of her connection with them? What do you say to that, Dee? Huh? Huh?
Quote #7
Hakim-a-barber said, "I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is not my style." (They didn't tell me and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.) (44)
Our narrator is, like, the total opposite of a meddling mother. She speculates (in a parentheses, no less) that her daughter may have gotten married, but she's not sticking her nose in to inquire about it, no sir and not even a little bit. Why do you think she doesn't just ask Dee what the story is with Hakim-a-barber?
Quote #8
Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them… In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War. (55)
This quilt seems like a much more convenient way to remember your relatives than having to lug around family albums, doesn't it? Plus, it'd keep you a lot warmer. Beyond all this, the use of the clothing in the quilt shows that this is a really thrifty and resourceful family.
Quote #9
"She can have them, Mama," [Maggie] said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. " I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts." (74)
Just when we were about to count Maggie out of the game of Life (both the board game and the real thing), she says something to reveal how much better off than Dee she may actually be. After all, if she can remember her grandmother without the quilts, she probably has a much stronger sense of family connection and kinship than Dee can ever hope to experience.
Quote #10
I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero's hands and dumped them into Maggie's lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open. (76)
Huzzah. What does the narrator accomplish in this moment? What effect (if any) do you think her actions will have on the dynamics of this family?