The story commences with Myop skipping outside her house enjoying the beautiful weather and summer air “the air held a keenness that made her nose twitch (Walker)”. For a while Myop continues to play and sing on the farm, just like a young girl would; with absolutely no worries “Nothing exist for her but her song (Walker)”. The causative incident occurs when Myop decides to explore the woods behind her house and ends up discovering “various common but pretty ferns and leaves, an armful of strange blue flowers with velvety ridges and a sweet suds bush (Walker)”. The rising action begins to arise around noon. Here, she has an arm full of her findings and realizes she is far from home when she senses an eerie change in the atmosphere. The climax emerges when she decides to find her way home. Myop suddenly gets her foot caught in something and she bravely pulls her it free, before looking at the demolished face below her. The falling action is revealed when Myop realizes what she stepped on. She detects the rest of the body and finds evidence that suggest the man was lynched to death. At this point she lays her flowers down and Walker introduces the readers to the main theme by concluding the short story with “And summer was over (Walker)”.
The Protagonist of The Flowers is Myop. She is a 10-year-old African-American “the stick clutched in her dark brown hand (walker)” who sees no wrong in ‘her world’. Myops character is introduced as playful and content. Her character then develops to include curiosity and careless “today she made her own path vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes (Walker).”By the end of the story Myops character evolves in maturity, thoughtfulness and wisdom “Frayed, rooted, bleached, and frazzled—barely there—bu...
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... unusual and melancholy “the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant as her usual haunts. It seemed gloomy in the little cove in which she found herself (Walker.)” From here the reason for the change in the mood is introduced a when Myop first comes across a severed head with a crumbled face then the rest of the body of a man whose limb was still tied to a tree from the lynching. The tone and mood changes to sympaty when Myop lays down her flowers near the remains of the decaying man to show respect. This also changes the scene of the cove. Its almost like she leaves her innocence in the cove; that light in the young girl she used to be. Myops innocence is lost because of one dramatice sight of rasism. In ending the story with “And the summer was over (Walker.)” walker changes the season from the end of summer to fall and Myop to a more mature aware girl.
Renner, Stanley. “The Real Woman Inside the Fence in ‘The Chrysanthemums’.” Modern Fiction Studies. Vol. 31. No.2. (Summer 1985). 305-317. print; reprinted in Short Story Criticisms. Vol.37. eds. Anja Barnard and Anna Sheets Nesbitt (Farmington Hills: The Gale Group, 2000). 333-339. print.
In “The Flowers,” by Alice Walker, the flowers are used throughout the story to symbolize the beauty and naivety of childhood. In the beginning of the story the author shows the main character Myop walking down a path along the fence of her farm. Myop sees “an armful of strange blue flowers with velvety ridges…” The flowers are bright and colorful, reminding the reader of an innocent type of beauty often associated with them. This suggests the flowers were inserted in the story by Walker to reveal how young and innocent Myop appears to be. Later in the story, after Myop had discovered the dead body of a man who seemed to have been hung “Myop laid down her flowers,”. As Myop put down the flowers she was also putting down the last of her innocence.
Eugenia Collier’s “Marigolds” is a memoir of a colored girl living in the Great Depression. The story does not focus on the troubles society presents to the narrator (Elizabeth), but rather is focused on the conflict within her. Collier uses marigolds to show that the changes from childhood to adulthood cause fear in Elizabeth, which is the enemy of compassion and hope.
The short story "The Chrysanthemums" gives insight into the life of its author. John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. The locale of the story is of key resemblance to the Salinas in which Steinbeck was born and bread. "Salinas was a typical American small town, [differing] only in location and a few distinctive features" (McCarthy 3). The protagonist of this story, Elisa Allen, also resembles Steinbeck's first wife. "Steinbeck probably based the character of Elisa Allen on his own first wife, Carol Henning Steinbeck. Like Elisa, Carol was a woman of considerable talent and energy who wore 'masculine clothes' and was 'strong, large-boned' and 'handsome rather than pretty'" (Hughes 23). Similar to the time frame in which Steinbeck lived, the theme of the story comes across as being male dominant and the rustic setting allows us to visualize this.
The garden is the vehicle in which the narrator reveals her reluctance to leave behind the imaginary world of childhood and see the realities of the adult world. The evidence supporting this interpretation is the imagery of hiding. The narrator uses the garden to hide from reality and the changes of growing up. When she no longer can hide from reality, she tries to hide from herself, which leaves her feeling disillusioned and unsure of who she is.
Firstly, the narrator gives little detail throughout the whole story. The greatest amount of detail is given in the first paragraph where the narrator describes the weather. This description sets the tone and mood of the events that follow. Giving the impression that a cold, wet, miserable evening was in
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
We’ve all wondered and wracked our brains over the questions and nature of humankind, to which we have no true and final answers: how every moment lived and this moment you live right now, will simply be a memory, the daunting inevitability of death, life’s transience, the irreversibility of time, the loss of innocence with ages…it is in the human condition to question such things; and this mutual similarity in wonder, to me, is beautiful. I intertwine these universal topics into my poetry, particularly Father & Child and the Violets, to transcend time and provide meaning to a range of different contexts, whilst reflecting my own context and values.
...ots her memory, the blossoms her dreams, and the branches her vision. After each unsuccessful marriage, she waits for the springtime pollen to be sprinkled over her life once again. Even after Tea Cake's death, she has a garden of her own to sit and revel in.
After locking her self in the solitude of her bedroom she begins to recognize things that one would not think of after a loved one just passed away. " She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life (paragraph 5)." This is the point at witch she begins to deal with the grieving process, but also starts to realize the beauty of life. She begins to see that ...
"She skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen". This shows how happy Myop is in this setting, we know she feels safe here, "She felt light and good in the warm sun" Her innocence produces an excitement to the reader as it gives the character and the text somewhere to go. We learn that Myop is ten and is African American, however Walker does not present the reader with clear facts but instead reveals it to us. " The stick clutched in her dark brown hand", from the information given she allows the reader to form a visual image of Myop. Walker also highlights the setting around Myop, playing on the character's senses.
Walker uses the positive imagery of “The Flowers” at the beginning of the novel to set up a naïve, sweet world in which a gruesome appearance of the lynched victim turns out to a reasonably unexpected, shocking event that robs Myop of her innocence. The first half of the text focuses on Myop’s childlike innocence with sweet kinesthetic imagery of Myop feeling “good and warm in the sun” to hit specifically on Myop’s childlike inhibitions. In the same case, sweet and gentle visual imagery continues to play in the first few paragraphs of a happy agricultural lifestyle where “each day a golden surprise” and a ten year old girl like Myop could “skip lightly from her house to pigpen” and bounce “this way and that way”. Myop’s joyful rapping of the stick that goes “tat-de-ta-ta-ta” enables auditory imagery to play on a merry sort of onomatopoeia that goes strongly with Myop’s innocence. Imagery had little direct prepa...
It portrayed the themes of ephemerality, life in the face of death, and the dastardly characteristics of death. Just like his mother, the dandelion was able to accomplish conveying the emotions and thoughts he held. The dandelion has a brief lifespan, and once it has completed its journey it departs for good. Even though the garden it lived in had poisonous soil, the dandelion was still able to stay alive (if only for a little while) in the wasteland. Finally, the brevity of the weed’s life is shadowed by the remaining beauty in the world, and this portrays the author’s feelings of being cheated by his mother’s untimely death. Her life is gone like a breeze, but her beauty will remain an eternal
The night ebbed in the darkness brUGHT t about the memory of the most tragic event in the history of the small town of Greenville. Not knowing the tragedy that would unfold the citizens rested quietly in the slumber of that hot August night. Storm clouds loomed on the horizon with blazes of light that speckled the sky. In the distance the soft rumble of thunder brought no alarm to this quiet little town. Jenny and Blade lived in the rural area of green pine forests on the outskirts of this sleepy little town. Nowhere in the history of Greenville had such a tragedy happens, and no one was aware of the destruction that loomed on the horizon. As the night closed near the midnight hour, the wind seemed to awaken the lifeless living things in
... feel of walking through the park on a crisp winter day—by exaggerating them and bringing them to the forefront. They had gotten lost in the routine of everyday life. Joyce’s novel is meant to do the same thing; it brings beauty and the reaction to it to the forefront through Stephen, giving the reader a frame through which he or she can recognize the forgotten beauty of his or her own surrounding world.