Really, apart from the fact that they are sisters, the
text establishes little similarity between Maggie and Dee. Consider how Maggie is
introduced in the first paragraph:
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":
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.
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