‘The Flowers’ by Alice Walker is a short story about a young girl named Myop who takes a walk down a new path through the woods, collecting flowers she finds. While walking, she steps in the decomposing body of what is a, presumably hanged, dead man. Upon looking over the scene she finds, she deduces that the man was much more than likely hanged. With this discovery, she lays down her flowers. Alice Walker describes these scenes and characters impeccably well, and sets the mood clearly with just the description alone. Alice Walker’s ‘The Flowers’ is filled with expertly written description from beginning to end. For example, at the start of the story, there are descriptions like “The air held a keenness that made her nose twitch. The harvesting
In John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”, he uses the chrysanthemums, fence, and garden to symbolize Elisa’s thoughts and feelings throughout his story. He uses these symbols to show love, neglect, loneliness, protection, and passion for his characters.
Margaret Laurence uses flower imagery in her novel The Stone Angel to represent Hagar's way of life. There are two types of flowers, wild and civilized. These two types of flowers are associated with the educated, controlled way of life and the material way of life.
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is a work that draws from the biblical tale of the Garden of Eden. Daniel Keyes manages to renew the story as his own while still using the same theme and plot. In Flowers for Algernon a grown man, named Charlie Gordon, who has learning disabilities gets an operation to make him smarter. After the operation is complete Charlie goes through the process of learning at an excelled rate and learns many things, some of which are good, and some of which he would be better off not knowing. However, in the end the operation is not permanent and Charlie loses his gained intelligence. In the tale of the Garden of Eden God creates a man, named Adam, and soon later he creates a woman, named Eve. Adam and Eve live in The Garden of Eden. In the garden there is a tree called the tree knowledge. The tree of knowledge contains a fruit that they were told not to eat, eventually they eat the fruit and gain knowledge. Adam and Eve realize that they are naked and are ashamed, they then try to hide from God. Eventually God realizes and they get expelled from the garden to a life of sorrow, pain, and
Symbolism in Alice Walker's Everyday Use. History in the Making Heritage is something that comes to or belongs to one by reason of birth. This may be the way it is defined in the dictionary, but everyone has their own beliefs and ideas about what shapes their heritage. In the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, these different views are very evident by the way Dee (Wangero) and Mrs. Johnson (Mama) see the world and the discrepancy of who will inherit the family’s quilts.
In her story “Currents” Hannah Vosckuil uses symbolism, and a reverse narrative structure to show the story of how unnamed sympathetic and antagonistic characters react differently to a traumatic event. Symbolism can be found in this story in the way that Gary does not mind sitting in the dark alone at the end of the day as well as how both of his girls are affected by the symbolism of hands. One holding a boy’s hand for the first time and the other becoming sick after seeing the dead boy’s hand fall off the stretcher. The sympathetic and antagonistic manner of these characters is shown when both girls are told by their grandmother that they must return to the water to swim the next day. The grandmother sees this simply as a way of encouraging them and keeping them from becoming afraid of the water. However, the girls see this as a scary proposition because of what had happened, showing the grandmother as an antagonist character to the little girls.
“Apparently with no surprise” by Emily Dickinson presents the trials and tribulations that a flower must overcome if it is to survive. Dickinson creates a microcosm of the real world and a deep ecological study of human kind. Her word choice betrays a hidden disdain for human beings egotistical aims.
...ots her memory, the blossoms her dreams, and the branches her vision. After each unsuccessful marriage, she waits for the springtime pollen to be sprinkled over her life once again. Even after Tea Cake's death, she has a garden of her own to sit and revel in.
Walker's The Flowers.Full Text Available By: Loeb, Monica. Explicator, Fall96, Vol. 55 Issue 1, p60, 3p
The Flowers By Alice Walker Written in the 1970's The Flowers is set in the deep south of America and is about Myop, a small 10-year old African American girl who explores the grounds in which she lives. Walker explores how Myop reacts in different situations. She writes from a third person perspective of Myop's exploration. In the first two paragraph Walker clearly emphasises Myop's purity and young innocence.
Tennessee Williams wrote The Glass Menagerie in a poetic and symbolic manner. For example, the glass menagerie is a symbol for how fragile Laura is, and the fire escape is a symbol for Tom’s hope to escape his dysfunctional household. Amanda is very poetic when she speaks. For example, "Oh! I felt so weak I could barely keep on my feet! I had to sit down while they got me a glass of water! Fifty dollars’ tuition, all of our plans – my hopes and ambitions for you – just gone up the spout, just gone up the spout like that." (2.16, Amanda).
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.
The girl lay face-down, arms outstretched, rushes woven among her fingers. She wore a long dress of cotton, sprigged with tiny flowers, and the hem of the dress swung and rippled round her legs with the motion of the water. Gathered flowers--enamelled buttercups, mauve lady’s smock--floated about her body and clung to her hair and her dress wherever they touched. It looked a quiet way to die.
Tennessee Williams', The Glass Menagerie, is a play that evokes great sympathy and in some cases, empathy for a protagonist who struggles to overcome two opposing forces; his responsibilities and his desires. There are many symbols and non-liner references that contribute to the development of characterization, dramatic tensions and the narrative. This essay will examine in detail, the aspects of the play that contribute to the development of the above mentioned elements.
When one thinks of children’s storybooks, one robotically assumes a simple fairy tale with no particular purpose. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, is very successful in means of portraying a deeper message with usage of symbolism and satire. Just about all the characters found in the story function as a symbol, leaving the rest for the reader’s imagination. Even though Alice in Wonderland does not fulfill the “classic fairy tale,” it does not leave one, particularly children, questioning the story. Because Alice in Wonderland is a dream-like tale, it enables Lewis Carroll to criticize and make fun of the Victorian Age. Like many other known authors, they use satire to point out faults of society and the people in a humorous manner. The core idea behind Alice in Wonderland is the chaos that comes with puberty and growing up. More importantly, the use of the rabbit hole, growing and shrinking, having to identify herself to characters, and Alice herself help to construct the main theme of the story.
Flowers are a sign of celebration, a sign of sympathy, and a sign of beauty. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway which was published in 1925 seven years after the first world war, and her last novel Between the Acts which was published in 1941 in the middle of the second world war, both are full of flowers. The imagery of nature and rustic scenes within the novels help you to better understand the feeling of reflecting on happier times from the past, and hoping for recreation. Although most would think that Woolf’s images would be about looking for a better, brighter, and happier future, they all do not quite relay that message. Many of the images are corrupted and distorted, echoing with remaining fears from the previous war and the approaching fear of war ahead. Nature is beautiful, it is frightening, it is confusing, and it is questionable. All of these feelings and more can be found in the nature imagery that Woolf uses so beautifully throughout her novels Between the Acts and Mrs. Dalloway.