If she couldn't bear the name of those same women that stitched the quilt together, why did she want them so badly? It becomes apparent when Dee sets her eyes upon Grandma Dee's butter dish. "That's it!" she said "I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could have" (69). Her motive to visit became clear when she thoughtlessly requested a few items that were still used by mother. Dee half heartedly inquired about the origins of the items so that she could "show" that they had value to her. Dee's intent for the items, however, was to do something artistic and use them as a decoration in her new city home. She also commented on the hand-carved benches made for the table when the family could not afford to buy chairs. To Dee, artifacts such as the benches or the quilts are strictly objects. It never occurred to her that they are symbols of oppression: her family made these things because they could not afford to buy them. Her appreciation for them now seems to reflect a cultural trend towards valuing handmade objects, rather than any genuine interest in her "heritage." .
Dee believed that she understood her own heritage and that it was Maggie and mother who were confused. Although Maggie and mother viewed Dee as being insensitive to their heritage, maybe it was a little bit of everyone's misunderstanding of the true meaning. Maggie and mother recognize the limitations of their own lives and this is what separates them from Dee. The mother only has a second-grade education and admits that she cannot look a white man in the eye. The mother is a, "Large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands that can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man" (65). Mother took pleasure in a rugged farming life in the country and now lives in a small, tin-roofed house in the middle of a cow pasture. Mother is humble regarding the house that they now live in and takes much pride in the comfort of their clay yard" (65).