Darkness In Eugenia Collier's The Marigolds

298 Words1 Page

In the short story “The Marigolds,” Eugenia Collier uses symbolism to show how lightness within of darkness can affect a person. The author put Lizabeth as the narrator to be able to compare her emotions towards the marigolds as a child to as an adult. As an adult, Lizabeth “feels again the chaotic emotions of adolescence” (Collier 1). And as a child they gave Lizabeth confusion, “they said too much that we could not understand; they did not make sense” (Collier 4). This is because they did not fit into the town, they were too beautiful to be in the shantytown. Eventually, the hopefulness and brightness of the flowers made Lizabeth break. As Collier says, “those feelings combined into one great impulse toward destructions” (Collier 6). This

Show More
Related

  • Juxtaposition In The Violets By Gwen Harwood

    302 Words  | 1 Pages

    Through the use of several poetic devices, Harwood is able to articulate and format her ideas in a way that adds to the appeal of the text. Harwood incorporates juxtaposition in order to depict the binary oppositions and the dualistic nature of human life and experience. "Frail melancholy flowers among ashes and loam." (The Violets) is a given example, with the 'ashes' symbolising death and fragility, contrasted by 'loam' as a symbol of life and growth. "On what flood are they borne, these memories of early childhood/iridescent, fugitive" (At Mornington) juxtaposes the secretive nature of memories that can also be both splendour and colourful. The frequent use of enjambment in 'The Violets', captures the stylistic feature of the train-of-thought

    Read More

  • Georgina's Use Of Symbolism In The Birthmark By Nathaniel Hawthorne

    1057 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Birthmark, 1843 is a story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne an author who has written several well-known literary classics. This author is known for his excellent use of literary elements. In the story, The Birthmark, Hawthorne does a great job of capturing symbolism throughout its entirety. The author is able to incorporate everyday things into his story and give them a meaning beyond their everyday definition. The biggest and most important example of this would be the birthmark.

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Flowers

    632 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Wd Snodgrass Leaving The Motel

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    This also reflects their sexual encounter together during the night, which will be coming to an end soon. Symbols are used numerous times throughout the poem. The flowers, "Our lilacs" (22), expresses they desire to be a couple, as the word "Our" (22) is symbolizing togetherness. The flowers in the vase symbolize the relationship between the two and how lively they are together. The author creates many images using symbolism, especially with the lilac flowers. He could have used just the word flower, but instead, he chose to use lilacs. Lilacs create an image of a delicate, although fresh and vivacious emotions between the two. By using lilacs we are given the indication that this meeting took place in the

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Poem 'A Moon-Lily' By Ted Hughes

    938 Words  | 2 Pages

    The speaker personifies the flower by describing how the moon-lily sings: “…it is singing—very far/ but very clear and sweet” (10-11). The voice of the flower is the voice of the woman. The flower is calling out to the man. The fact that the flower has to call out to the man implies that he does not accept the love of the woman. The speaker also describes the distance between the two people. He states, “The voice is always in some other room” (12). Once again the speaker is describing distance, but the man does not try to close the distance. The reason the man does not try to close the distance is because he does not love the woman. The lily represents the female and their love. In the poem, the speaker talks about a “garden” which is a metaphor for the female’s life (13). In the garden the speaker describes the flower as “in bloom” and that the flower “stands full and/ proud” (13,14-15). This section of the poem tells the reader that the woman’s love is strong and unwavering. The speaker compares the woman’s love to a lily because the love is pure of heart and beautiful. The relationship that the poem depicts is unhealthy for the female. The woman is putting too much effort into a nonexistent

    Read More

  • Annotating Marigolds Analysis

    380 Words  | 1 Pages

    After reading and annotating Marigolds by Eugenia W. Collier, I learned that there are some things we don’t know or realize when we are a child. When we become a woman, we have a different perspective on things. That is what Eugenia learned by the end of the story. Once she ruined all of Miss Lottie’s marigolds, she immediately felt guilty. Miss Lottie stood there with no anger on her face, just disappointment. Eugenia said that was when she saw her childhood fade and womanhood start to begin. Once she began womanhood, she learned that those flowers were precious to Miss Lottie and she was tying to make some beauty out of her shanty house. She viewed Miss Lottie as “… only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness

    Read More

  • Janie and the Pear Tree in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

    906 Words  | 2 Pages

    Under the pear tree on that spring afternoon, Janie sees sensuality wherever she looks. "The first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously" (10). Gazing across the garden...

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre vs House of Mirth Lily

    2029 Words  | 5 Pages

    word “art” which may imply something about the materialistic world that she tries to be a part of. Interestingly, and perhaps most symbolic, is the fact that the lily is the “flower of death”, an outcome that her whirlwind, uptight, unrealistic life inevitably led her to.

    Read More

  • Scarlet Letter

    1567 Words  | 4 Pages

    Nature, color and light are used as symbols throughout the novel to illustrate several areas of the story (Waggoner 154). The prison door, for example, was described as being composed of “oak and iron” and its coloring “sad” and “gray”, symbolizing the rigidity of the Puritan society against sinners (Waggoner 154). The rosebush situated outside of the prison door is like a “moral blossom” growing amongst the bitter weeds of society, in the “most unlikely of places” (Hawthorne). The placement of the rosebush in such a dank, improbable position as outside of a place housing sinners (the prison), imparts the fact that such an element of beauty and innocence is nevertheless able to be born out of a station with such an ill aura. Pearl is symbolic of the rosebush in that she was spawned from the same evil air of sin (Waggoner 156). However, her purity is just as real as that which comes from a origin of virtue (Waggoner 156). She is often associated with roses (Waggoner 156). For example, in the governor’s she cries and pleas that she must have one (Waggoner 156). In addition, her very name is an indication of the symbol she conveys (Waggoner 157). Like a pearl comes from the mangled, impure exterior of the oyster, Pearl comes from the equally impure and squalid exterior of the sin her parents willingly committed (Waggoner 157). Another nature related symbol comes in the forest. The forest itself holds its own variety of symbolism. “Freedom” is one expression of the forest. There is no reason for Hester and Dimmesdale to be secretive among the trees where no one can witness their union (Matthiessen 299).

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence in The Flowers, by Alice Walker

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although imagery and symbolism does little to help prepare an expected ending in “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, setting is the singular element that clearly reasons out an ending that correlates with the predominant theme of how innocence disappears as a result of facing a grim realism from the cruel world. Despite the joyous atmosphere of an apparently beautiful world of abundant corn and cotton, death and hatred lies on in the woods just beyond the sharecropper cabin. Myop’s flowers are laid down as she blooms into maturity in the face of her fallen kinsman, and the life of summer dies along with her innocence. Grim realism has never been so cruel to the innocent children.

    Read More

  • William Carlos Williams' The Rose - A Symbol of Love

    1124 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poem starts out as a description of the flower that we all have either received, given, longed for, or been cut by. Instantly, there is the feel of conflict in the language that is being used. Abrasive, heavy words that could be used to describe a murder are mixed with other words that seem to convey a sense of hope and spacial energy. The clusters of thought that somehow constitute a complete sentence make the reading somewhat difficult from the very beginning, but it seems to take on a multi-layered personality as the poem plays itself out. Although there is no mention of the thorny stem, words such as 'sharper', 'cutting', and 'edge', instead describe the flower itself. The constant reference to materials that possess qualities different from any rose such as 'metal', 'copper', 'broken plate", and 'steel', serve to indicate that this flower is being seen through a set of eyes that have perhaps been cast and hardened by the capacity for love.

    Read More

  • Pear Tree Symbolism

    1142 Words  | 3 Pages

    The reciprocated romantic love symbolized by the pear tree is found to be unnecessary as Janie reaches her horizon at the end. The horizon reflects the state of happiness that Janie thought she could only reach through true love, but changes as she finds the strength to be happy with her independence. This message is important as it disproves the restricting status quo that women are dependent on men pushing for further equality between the

    Read More

  • Class Symbolism In The Garden Party

    1542 Words  | 4 Pages

    Roses are present in the garden, as they are “the only flowers that impress people” (Mansfield 2581). Mrs. Sheridan orders so many lilies that Laura think it must be a mistake, saying “nobody ever ordered so many” (Mansfield 2584). Satterfield says, “the flower imagery throughout the story serves to keep the reader reminded of the delicacy of Laura’s world. The flowers are splendid, beautiful, and-what is not stated- short-lived.” He goes on to say that Laura “can see only the beauty and not the dying of the flower, and she cannot see that, in many ways, she is very much like a flower herself.” The delicate life of the Sheridan’s is one that must come to an end. It is beautiful like the flowers, but also like the flowers, it will eventually die. As Darrohn puts it, “the Sheridans operate under the illusion that their easy life is natural… rather than produced through others’ labor.” This idea too can be illustrated by the flowers in the story. The roses that fill the gardens are the work of the gardeners who have “been up since dawn” (Mansfield 2581). It seems to Laura that “hundreds, yes, literally hundreds [of roses] had come out in a single night… as though visited by archangels” (Mansfield 2581). The reader can see through the flowers that the Sheridans have a rose-colored view of how their lifestyle

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis: Kew Gardens

    1205 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...that suspends the boundaries of man and nature, the way in which she structures the last image to be one of hostility indicates the unsustainable nature of the garden.

    Read More

  • What Laura Didn't learn in The Garden Party

    1959 Words  | 4 Pages

    At the conclusion of The Garden Party, Laura is exposed to a side of life she has never encountered before, and comes to a sudden realization that "life and death may indeed coexist and that their common existence in one world may be beautiful" (Magalaner 101). Death is not necessarily associated with ugliness, she learns, but rather it is a natural process which she likens to sound, peaceful sleep. However, her ostensible epiphany is really only astonishment. Laura’s world revolves around the finer things in life, garden parties, and flowers, and she has been surrounded by beauty her whole life. Her social class is too ingrained in her for a momentary glimpse of the contrasting life of the lower class to really affect her (Sorkin 445).

    Read More

More about Darkness In Eugenia Collier's The Marigolds

Open Document