Everyday Use

The mother's refusal to let Dee have the quilts indicates a permanent change of character. Before this took place, Mother always had a dream that Dee and her would get on a talk show and come to good terms. It wasn't like they were not on good terms before, they just never talked. Mother had never done something like this before because of the dream. She loved her daughter so much that she couldn't do anything to put her in her place before this. Mother does this now because she was tired of Dee picking on Maggie and didn't like that she was denying her true heritage. "You just don't understand," was Dee's reply to the mother and Maggie. Although Dee claims that Mother and Maggie don't understand their heritage, it is really Dee who doesn't know where she really came from.