Symbolism In The Scarlet Ibis And Marigolds

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"Symbolism is no mere idle fancy or corrupt degeneration; it is the inherent in the very texture of human life" (Whitehead). The feelings and emotions that come from reading a powerful short story can be intensified with the use of symbols. In works such as "The Sound of Thunder", "The Scarlet Ibis", and "Marigolds", the author's cleverly use ordinary objects, such as a sound, a bird, or a flower, to represent crucial ideas, thoughts, and opinions. The message of a story can have a varying impact on the reader, depending on what the symbols utilized represent. "The Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury is a political story about the consequences of impulsive decisions. The main character, Eckles, is using a time machine to go back in time to hunt …show more content…

The narrator, a young girl growing up during the Great Depression, lets herself fall prey to the foolish, childish tricks her impulsive teenager brain instructs her to. Her favorite activity is terrorizing an old woman, Miss Lottie who, oddly enough, tends to a flower bed of marigolds in her barren yard. She and the other children often threw rocks or preformed other cruel acts to interrupt poor Miss Lottie's labor. Towards the end of the story, the narrator has a crockpot of emotions brewing inside of her while she listens to her parents argue over money. Upset, she wakes up her little brother and runs outside to the Miss Lottie's yard. "I leaped furiously into the mounds of marigolds and pulled madly . . . I opened my swollen eyes and saw [Miss Lottie] . . . as I gazed into that immobile face with sad, weary eyes, I gazed upon a kind of reality which is hidden from childhood . . . I know that moment marked the end of innocence" (Collier 148). The marigolds represent joy and purity. They show that even in the hard times of Depression, happiness can bloom in the most unexpected place. However, it usually does not mean anything until the innocence is gone or blemished-- destroyed by one thing or another. Then, the hope it has brought will be

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