In "Everyday Use", compare the characters of Dee and Maggie.

What is vital to understanding this story is first of all
identifying how Dee and Maggie differ, as your question asks, but then you must also go
on to consider how Mama's relationship with both of them is different too, which is
unavoidable given that the point of view is from Mama's perspective and thus all we know
about her two daughters is from her point of view.

Let us
start by focussing on Maggie. Consider how Maggie is introduced in the first
paragraph:

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Maggie will be nervous until after her sister
goes: She will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down
her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She think her
sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never
learned to say to her.

This
quote clearly establishes some of the central differences between the two sisters. Dee
is confident, outgoing, ambitious and determined to make something of life, whereas
Maggie is shy, reclusive and passive. Consider how the narrator describes her daughter
as a "lame animal" who sidles "up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him".
Maggie, described in this fashion, is clearly painted as someone who has such a low
sense of self-worth that they are amazed that anyone would actually want to talk to
her.

However, the narrator says of Dee, "Hesitation was no
part of her nature":

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She was determined to stare down any disaster in
her efforts... At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style
was.

It is clear then that
Dee is incredibly self-confident and self-assured. She, as is amply evidenced later in
the story, knows what she wants and will not stand for anyone getting in her way, which
makes the narrator's decision to not give into her all the more
remarkable.

If you want to think about Mama, too, I will
add this paragraph. One of the key events in the short story that reveals Mama's
character is her refusal to give Dee what she wants, and her insistence that Maggie
receives the quilts. It is clear that she loves both of her daughters, but is
exasperated by both of them in different ways. However, her decision to give the quilts
to Maggie rather than Dee indicates what a high value she places on the family heritage
and history, of which the quilts are a symbol. Note too that this is the heritage that
Dee has rejected and turned her back on.

I hope this helps
you establish the opposite characters between Dee and Maggie in the story - although
they are sisters they show themselves to be incredibly different, and Walker could be
using them to represent, in Dee, those African Americans that have turned their backs on
their family history in their attempt to embrace their African roots, and in Maggie,
those African Americans who are perhaps ashamed of themselves and their
history.