Literary Focus

6) Maggie and Dee both have conflicting ideals concerning the quilt, and their feelings and actions demonstrate aspects of their personality. Dee wished to possess the quilt for its representation of her heritage and cultural background. She wished to place it on display, exhibiting her materialistic personality, and in addition it was only recently when she had the craving to preserve heritage, further demonstrating her obsession with fad and contemporary culture. In addition, Dee's falsely sweet tone of voice as she asks Mama for the quilts, and the shock when Mama refuses, reveals that she is not used to being turned down, and when Mama notes that they will be saved for Maggie, Dee's genuine shock continues to convey her arrogance and a sense of superiority she possesses over the rest of her family. Maggie, however, tells Mama that Dee can have the quilts. This exhibits her feelings of submission, reproachfulness, and inferiority (despite the fact that she probably does indeed want the quilts, she is willing to hand them over to Dee). This point is significant because Maggie understands the true intrinsic value of the quilt; not its general display of African-American heritage, but the quilt contains a personal sentimental value, as a reminder of a specific person of the past (her Grandma Dee). She is able to remember her grandmother without the quilt, she says. In this event, Maggie reveals her innocent personality, but at the same time reveals a wisdom that Dee does not understand.

7) The irony of Dee's sudden interest in heritage is that her past actions are in direct conflict with her beliefs in the story. Since a child, Dee wished to escape the uncivilized rural South where she lived. She did all she could to turn herself into someone else, ultimately leaving her home and her life, reinventing herself, and becoming in touch with the contemporary world. So why does she have a sudden fascination in her heritage, which she had neglected only a short while ago? I believe it is because of her obsession with wanting to be contemporary and keeping up with civilization and with fad. During the 1960s, when this story is set, the Civil Rights Movement of the African Americans was taking place. African Americans remembered their oppressed history, and there was an upward surge of pride because their history. To keep up with this new event, Dee has invested her devotion into her heritage once again (despite her contemporary appearance and materialistic approaches). This is why she wants to have the churn and the quilts.