Myop The Woman

In the story, “The Flower” by Alice Walker, the main character, Myop, is faced with the harshness of the world she lives in, causing her to face reality and lose her innocence, which causes her to grow as a person. Initially, Myop is like every other ten year old, who hasn’t yet discovered the dangers, that people in the world can cause. “Nothing existed for her except her songs, the stick she clutched in her dark brown hand, and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment” (Paragraph 2). Myop had nothing to fear or worry about in her life, except for things so wanted to think about, which most of the time was discovering new places to see. Myop often left her sharecropper cabin and went to explored the woods alone. “Today she made her own path, bouncing this way and that way, vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes” (Paragraph 4). Many people who have

Even though Myop has an uneasy feeling, since she has probably never come into contact with any danger, she doesn’t know what to make of it so she decides to head back to her house. Myop’s character change happens when she is her way back and stumbles into a dead man. Although she is shocked by the finding, this doesn’t prevent her from picking up the rose which is lying next to him. Once she picks up the rose, she automatically realizes there is a noose attached to it, which indicates that the man was a victim of lynching. Instead of keeping the flowers, “Myop laid down her flowers” (Paragraph 8), symbolizing that she had just lost a portion of her innocence and faith that people in the world don’t hurt each other. In addition, “And the summer was over” (Paragraph 9), shows how her happiness which she related with summer was now gone because of the horror she has just seen. Throughout the story, Myop goes through a shift in character which can be represented by the theme, a loss of