In "Everyday Use", how would you describe the relationship between the mother and her two daughters?

Mrs. Johnson is a mother who has spent her life raising
two daughters, trying to give them a sense of where they come from and what is important
in life.

Dee is more intelligent and forward-thinking, and
she goes off to school and eventually settles in the city to
work.

Maggie is not as motivated or pretty as Dee, but she
is a good person.  She has chosen to stay home, and is now getting ready to
marry.

Three generations are presented in this story.
 Though Grandma Dee is dead, the possession of her quilts comes into question.  She is
the a woman who represents a source of strength and cultural pride for this family.  I
think Mrs. Johnson has the same values as she raises her daughters--who both had a
relationship with their grandmother before she died.

Dee
goes off "to the big city," and tries to leave her "roots" behind her.  It's safe to say
that her mother is puzzled by Dee's intolerance of her ancestors' history in the United
States; this change is evident when Dee chooses an African name and can find no good
that has come at the hands of those [whites] who have oppressed her and her people.
 It's as if Mrs. Johnson doesn't quite know who her daughter has
become.

Maggie, on the other hand, has stayed close to
home, not just physically but philosophically as well.  She is still rooted in the
generations that have come before her.  She is a proud young woman who seems to be more
grounded in the true importance of family.  It is easier for Mrs. Johnson to connect to
this daughter who has not walled herself away from her
heritage.

When Dee announces that she wants the family
quilts, made by the hands of previous generations, Mrs. Johnson is surprised (because of
Dee's new stance on "family") and now confronted with a dilemma.  Maggie had asked to
have the quilts.

Dee does not want them for their familial
significance, but because they would look nice in her home.  Maggie wants them
specifically because of the attachment she feels to her family and
her heritage through the quilts.

Mrs. Johnson, isn't quite
sure what to do.  Maggie finally agrees that Dee can have the quilts, stating that she
does not need the physical presence of these things in her life to help her feel
connected to her family's past, especially Grandma Dee.

As
Mrs. Johnson looks at her daughters throughout the debate, she decides that she know
which daughter would really find having them meaningful, and so gives them to
Maggie.

Mrs. Johnson has raised two daughters, and done
well by them.  However, the attachment between herself and Dee, and the relationship she
has with Maggie, are totally different.  Dee can see things only in terms of today,
while Maggie keeps one foot in the past, remembering, fondly, the line from which she
has "sprung."

Mrs. Johnson will have a closer relationship
with Maggie who has not forgotten where she comes from, than with Dee, who wants nothing
else but to leave her heritage behind her.