Marigolds

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Recommended: Loss of innocence literature

The end of child innocence is a significant part of transitioning into young adulthood. This is illustrated in “Marigolds,” a short story written by Eugenia Collier, that takes place in a small town trapped in poverty during the Great Depression. The main character Lizabeth is a fourteen-year-old girl who is playing with her brother and neighborhood friends and just being kids when she simultaneously encounters an experience that teach about compassion, which eventually helps her step into adulthood. Through Lizabeth’s childhood experience, Collier portrays that maturity is based on compassion and overcoming the innocence of childhood.

By the virtue of their innocence, the children in “Marigolds” are cruel. Lizabeth explains how there are “...no radios, few newspapers, and no magazines”(76). Thus the kids are unaware of the poverty they are living in. They have no knowledge of what is happening in the world and are only exposed of what is around them. They live their lives normally, doing their chores, playing and running around like any kid will do. One day, the kids are bored and ...

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