What do you take to be the author’s attitude toward each of her characters? How does she convey it?
What will be an ideal response?
- The author provides several details to give the reader a sense of her view of her characters. Determined to give her daughters a better life, Mama—a hardworking woman with only a second grade education—raised enough money through her church to send Dee to school in Augusta. Dee fails to appreciate her mother’s sacrifices: “[Dee] used to read to [Maggie and me] without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice” (par. 11).
The author is clearly sympathetic to Maggie, who was hurt in the mysterious fire that burned down their house. Although in a formal sense, Maggie is uneducated, in another sense, she is the most grounded character in the story. She knows details about her history, and she is intuitive about her surroundings. She does not want to fight with her sister, a woman who clearly has little regard for others. From the triumphant tone of the story’s end, it might seem that the author wants us to feel sympathy for Mama and Maggie and perhaps a feeling of “good riddance” for Dee.
But perhaps the author has a sense of ambivalence about “Miss Wangero.” Although she pokes fun at Dee’s posturing and false sense of superiority, she also admires Dee’s determination to succeed and her strength of character. As Mama says with an obvious sense of pride: “Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? . . . Dee, though. She would always look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature” (par. 7).
Language Arts & World Languages
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