2. How does Dee's mother's dream of the television show reveal Dee's character? How about the way Dee read to her family while she was growing up? What does that tell us about Dee?
3. Why does Dee change her name? What is her mistake?
4. What contributes most to Maggie's manner? Is Maggie an important character in her own right, or is she only a foil character, a character whose presence illuminates another's. Make a good argument with evidence either way. You must support your viewpoint.
5. Who is the colonialist in this story? Why is that ironic? Explain.
The foreshadowing, especially in the second paragraph builts the tension of what is to come, the confrontation between not only generations but ways of doing things. It also has a lot of exposition rolled into forshadowing: the "burn scars" the reader is shown will be fully explored throughout the journey of the story.
ReplyDeleteWhy is so much time spent on describing the dirt yard? The yard serves as a the stage from which the family watched the house (dream) burn to ashes. It is also the place where the sacrifice(s) takes place: Maggie sacifcies herself for the quilts; Dee symbolically stands there upon her return having sacificed her heritage for the "cause." It is the same land where generations a of slaves and share croppers lived and died. Its all about the land,some how it has always been about the land.
Why the simile comparing it to a living room?
The yard also speaks of the place African-Americans made for themselves, creating sometihng special out of nothing; the way they created soul food out of trash.
Clearly, Dee is the colonialist in Walker's story. She fast adapts to those more extreme in protesting the way African-Americans are treated in the United States. By doing this (changing her name and wearing clothes she stayed away from her entire life, demanding a quilt is hung instead of laid under) she is conforming to a stereotype instead of living life the way she chooses. She becomes enslaved to her own expectations, while her mother and younger sister manage to preserve their heritage and enjoy their life at the same time - chewing tobacco and staying warm at night with those handmade quilts.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ms. Botelho in the sense that Dee is the Colonist in the story. Her inept attitude towards change only proves the irony in her doing so. She is so quick to change her name, her appearance and the way she acts, yet she tells her mother and sister that they have lost their heritage. That is the irony of the situation. It is her who actually lost touch with her heritage. She disregards where her name came from and demands that quilts should be hung up instead of being used as their purpose should be.
ReplyDelete4 - Concerning the Foil
ReplyDeleteI often turn to this story for clear evidence of a foil character, but not for Maggie. She comes off as a complete character in her own right. I think Hakim-a-barber is a strong foil because he is the more genuine side of what Dee is pretending to be. He has values that he actually sticks to (see the family dinner at the top of 1310). Dee is clearly an impostor, and Hakim-a-barber's presence helps emphasize that fact.
Maggie is an important character in her own right because she acts as catalyst for her mother's epiphany. It's not Dee's absurd demands or the thought of losing the quilts that make the mother react, it's Maggie. "When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to the soles of my feet" (1311). She causes the mother's realization by finally really making her presence felt.
It may be easy to dismiss Maggie as a supporting character, or foil character, because being dismissed is a defining characteristic. She is neglected, is forgotten, is the "other sister" but the role that she plays is certainly beyond one of a foil. I don't find the descriptions of Maggie serving only to enhance the descriptions of Dee, any more than one might say the descriptions of night enhance the descriptions of day. A reader can compare and contrast the two, and use one to explain the other, but I would not reduce Maggie's character to a literary tool.
Dee wants to hang up her culture and put it on display--to not use it and live through it. She wants to distance herself from her culture and background, while yet searching back to her "original" background as an African. She is condescending toward her own and her families everyday life, but for some reason sees her heritage as an African to be superior to what her and her family have become. Dee hides from herself and her upbringing just as Sonny's brother does. She is a taker.
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