In Alice Walker's short story titled "Everyday Use," how are the differences between the two sisters initially depicted? Which sister most...

In Alice Walker’s short story titled “Everyday Use,” the
two sisters – Dee and Maggie – are initially and consistently described in ways that
emphasize their differences.  Of the two sisters, the one who perhaps most resembles
Walker herself (at least at the time the story was written) is
Maggie.

• Whereas Dee is self-confident and
  attractive, Maggie is described as a “nervous” person who is
  

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homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her
arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and
awe.

• Whereas Dee
  has lighter skin than Maggie and is more attractive physically, Maggie is said to have a
  “thin body” and is compared to a “lame animal.”


• Whereas
  Maggie was burned in a fire that destroyed the family’s earlier house, Dee was untouched
  by the flames and was not bothered by the house’s
  destruction.


• Whereas Dee is well educated and proud of
  her education, Maggie’s education is limited; her own mother describes her as “not
  bright.”


• Whereas Dee dresses well and is stylish, Maggie
  dresses very plainly.


• Whereas Dee is financially
  comfortable, Maggie is not.


• Whereas Dee has a male
  partner, Maggie does not.


• Whereas Dee has changed her
  name, Maggie has not.


• Whereas Dee is highly
  race-conscious, Maggie is not.


• Whereas Dee speaks loudly
  and brashly, Dee speaks “so low you almost couldn’t hear
  her.”


• Whereas Dee “has a temper,” Maggie does
  not.


• Whereas Dee is pretentious and assertive, Maggie is
  humble.


• Whereas Dee is self-centered and demanding,
  Maggie is generous, as when she offers Dee the
  quilts.


• Whereas Dee is ambitious in a worldly way, Maggie
  is not.

Of the two sisters, Walker probably
identified most strongly with Maggie, especially because of “her childhood memories of
the visits home by her brilliant and accomplished older sister, who, as she wrote in her
poem 'For My Sister Molly Who in the Fifties,'

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FOUND ANOTHER
WORLD

Another life    With
gentlefolk

Far less
trusting

And moved and moved and
changed

Her
name."

(See Susan Belasco and
Linck Johnson, eds., The Bedford Anthology of American Literature 2
vols. (Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2008), 2:
1450.

• In addition, like Maggie, Walker herself
  had suffered an early physical impairment: she became blind in one eye after having been
  shot in that eye by a BB gun.