Short Story Marigolds By E. Collier

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The short story “Marigolds” by E. Collier is a story about a girl who becomes a woman after she destroys Mrs. Lottie’s Marigolds. She is still ignorant about her situation in life until she hears her father crying because of the Great Depression. She and her family lives in a minuscule town in rural Maryland in 1930. She is still a girl that likes to play with the children in the town and all of the children despise Mrs. Lottie’s Marigolds because of its perfect beauty in the shanty town. Lisabeth and her brother Joey decide to pick at some locusts in the town, but they already have done most of the fun things because while their parents are at work, they play with the kids in the town and have fun with their free time. The children all decide to destroy Mrs. Lottie’s flowers. Mrs. …show more content…

She is working in her yard and some of the kids throw rocks and decapitate some of the Marigolds. Lisabeth enjoys messing with Mrs. Lottie, but deep down inside she is riding the fence with her emotions. She feels bad for what she is doing according to the quote. “I did not join the merriment when the kids gathered again under the oak in our bare yard. Suddenly I was ashamed, and I did not like being ashamed. The child in me sulked and said it was all in fun, but the woman in me flinched at the thought of the malicious attack that I had led (34).” She is feeling both ways. After she goes to bed she awakens to hear her father crying. All of her anger towards life, her mother working all the time, being in between a woman and a child, and the poverty that her family is

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