Character Analysis
The Incredibly Strong, Shrinking Violet
There's no doubt about it: our narrator is one tough lady. She tells us, "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" (5). Doesn't exactly make you want to tussle with her, does it? And it's not like she's just physically strong—she's clearly been through a lot, what with her whole house burning down and everything.
She also doesn't say very much about having a husband or partner to help her out (yeah, she does mention the kids' father once in passing, but he never appears) so she might very well have raised Dee and Maggie as a single mom.
Despite being a kind of all-around superwoman, the narrator probably isn't somebody we'd see starring in a reality show today. That is, she's not the type who likes to draw attention to or put a ton of focus on herself. If we want to get fancy, we could say that she's not very egocentric.
Think about how she talks to us readers in the beginning of the story, for instance—she doesn't even tell us her first name, for crying out loud. You really can't get more un-self-focused than that. And sure, she throws out a few tidbits about herself, but her thoughts always seem to lead right to her daughters: who they are, what they think, how they reacted to the fire. And when the action of the story gets going, she hangs back and doesn't challenge Dee when she's taking those weird pictures and ransacking the butter churn.
Now don't get us wrong: Being on the more reserved side isn't necessarily a character flaw, and it might even be seen as a strength. After all, it could get really annoying if the narrator was constantly going around saying, hey, look at how awesome I am. But in this story, we get some important hints that growing up as an African American girl before the Civil Rights era has played a pretty huge role in shaping the submissive side of her personality. And this is super important because the story is essentially all about racial identity, or how race (and racial oppression) plays a crucial role in who we are.
The narrator explains, for instance:
I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't ask me why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. (13)
As a young kid growing up in a time when black people faced segregation and discrimination, the narrator wasn't encouraged to assert her opinions or question the way things were, a tendency that's clearly stuck with her. Likewise, the narrator says:
Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It seem to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head turned in whichever way is farthest from them. (6)
One foot raised in flight? Wow, the narrator's experiences with white men have obviously made her feel pretty fearful, which may explain a lot about her timid and non-confrontational nature. Living in a racially oppressive time has clearly had a profound impact on who this narrator is.
But wait a minute. At the end of the story, our meek and mild-mannered narrator stands up to the formidable Dee. Talk about a 180, right? So what's up with this huge personality change?
The Quilt that Broke the Mother's Back
So we all know what a big deal it is when the narrator takes back the quilts that Dee wants and gives them to Maggie at the end of the story. Like we've said above, the narrator isn't the most assertive person ever, so this is really out of character. And if there's any doubt about how huge this is, she pretty much tells us that asserting herself with Dee and standing up for Maggie is "something I never had done before" (75).
But why draw the line at quilts?
The narrator's big change seems to have more to do with Maggie than the quilts themselves. Specifically, it seems like she sees something in Maggie, or maybe more accurately, recognizes something:
[Maggie] stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn't mad at her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work. (75)
The narrator sees that Maggie has basically resigned to accepting the injustices of the world, even relatively small injustices like her sister always getting everything. She doesn't question, she doesn't assert her opinion… remind you of anyone? Yup—the narrator seems to be seeing herself in Maggie.
Watching Maggie results in a kind of epiphany, or moment of realization, for the narrator. Epiphanies pop up sometimes near the end of short stories (James Joyce's short stories are famous for them). They're those moments when something suddenly becomes clear for the first time ever or you see something in a totally different light. Epiphanies can seem to come out of nowhere and even be a little mystical, and our narrator's epiphany is classic in this way. Check it out:
When I looked at [Maggie] like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout. (76)
But why would watching Maggie looking so pitifully resigned to the ways of the world make the narrator want to jump up and shout? Maybe she realizes that, as her mother, she has the power to change how Maggie views the world. And that's exactly what she does. Right after her epiphany, the narrator tells us that:
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. (76)
The narrator obviously doesn't want Maggie to go on accepting the world's injustices as the narrator herself has, so she's forced to take action.
And that's the real sign our narrator has changed.