"'Well,' I said, stumped. 'What would you do with them?'
'Hang them,' she said. As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts."
This is the turning point in the story. Up until this moment, Mama and Maggie both had somewhat let Dee step all over them. For the longest time, they had put up with her ungrateful and arrogant attitude. However, it only takes her daughter's outburst about some hand-me-down quilts to change everything in Mama's mind. When she sees her bratty daughter screaming about how her sister could never appreciate these quilts in the same way that she could and then sees her other daughter Maggie, being generous and offering her the quilts, she knows that she has stood by long enough. She cannot let her unappreciative hypocritical and uppity daughter treat her or Maggie like they are lesser anymore. The question comes to mind: How does one correctly appreciate quilts? The answer to Mama is obviously not hanging them on a rack and using them as decoration, but to actually use them for warmth and the purpose they were created for. If Dee actually appreciated the quilts, she wouldn't just want them as a decoration for her house, but she would care for what they represented and would want to use them further so that she could add to their meaning. That is what makes Dee a foil of Mama and Maggie. This city girl who wants to use these items from her heritage simply to make life prettier but not to retain her heritage is the exact opposite of her simple but rooted mother and sister.
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