Losing Childhood Innocence Alice Walker writes the short story “The Flowers” about a little ten year old girl named Myop who in the beginning of the story is enjoying her day outside around her family’s sharecropper cabin picking flowers and just enjoying the day any other child would in the time of summer. As going down farther into the woods outside her house, she steps into a skull of a dead body. Without any hesitation or reaction, Myop simply lays down the flowers she had picked on him and leaves. The story might seem simple but Alice Walker lays downs a very deep meaning into this small piece of text. She creates a clear and vivid description of Myop’s lifestyle as if it were somewhat like a journey every child takes in their lives. Myop starts from being a normal little innocent girl to making discoveries one makes as they observe life and faces difficulties like everyone and learns to overcome them and then finally maturing quicker than her age and facing the cruel world and accepting what life has to offer. Other girls also faced this hardship during this time, the time of racial discrimination and racial violence, tearing up their childhood innocent youths into pieces and forcing them to mature quickly, facing and having to accept what life had to offer at that time no matter if they were ready for it or not. Alice Walker portrays these dreadful impacts on the innocent child’s life perfectly due to the past experiences she had also faced in her childhood and uses Myop perfectly to show it. In the beginning of the story Myop was introduced just the way any other child would be, happy, carefree and outside playing and “skip[ing]” around on a day that “had never been as beautiful as [that]…” Walker effectively establishes... ... middle of paper ... ...e period as listed above or committed suicide with a “noose”. Not even a slight reaction when stepping into the skull of corpse, proves that Myop was used to these cruel acts or at least had seen it before. After looking at the body, “Myop [simply] laid down her flowers” on the corpse. That action visualized the most important part of the story, which showed the destruction of the ten year old’s innocence who showed no sign of fear after stepping into the dead body. She had faced the cruel reality of life before and this time showed no reaction as if she has now been used to these types of things like death and murder. This is also were Walker shows the journey of the Myop’s innocence coming to a sad end and the facing the truth like a mature girl she was not supposed to be facing the true reality of life. “And the summer was over.” And the innocence was also over.
Susie’s mother opened the door to let Molly, Susie’s babysitter, inside. Ten-month old Susie seemed happy to see Molly. Susie then observed her mother put her jacket on and Susie’s face turned from smiling to sad as she realized that her mother was going out. Molly had sat for Susie many times in the past month, and Susie had never reacted like this before. When Susie’s mother returned home, the sitter told her that Susie had cried until she knew that her mother had left and then they had a nice time playing with toys until she heard her mother’s key in the door. Then Susie began crying once again.
Danielle Evans’ second story “Snakes” from the collection of short stories, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self depict a biracial girl who has been pressured due to her grandmother’s urge to dominate her. The story pictures her suffering with remarkable plot twist in the end of the story. Evans utilize a profound approach on how to bring readers to closely examine racism implicitly, to make readers recognize the actions may lead to social discrimination and its consequences that are often encountered in our daily life.
What makes this so significant is as Myop explores the field, the author inputs vivid imagery and symbolic representation of something greater. During her discovery, she finds a noose, which is a symbolic object that represents the torture and cruelty. And as a child, you have never experienced anything negative and graphically horrendous. When the girl "laid down her flowers," this displayed a depiction of her being once carfree to one who now realizes reality. The once flower-gathering for fun is now for giving sympathy to the dead. With all of this, the passage ends with "and the summer was over," a short sentence that serves as more than the end of the story, but the end of the child's childhood joyous
Myop is the main character in the story. She is an innocent, 10 year old girl, without a worry in the
Thomas uses pathos in order to demonstrate the difficulties she had to endure while growing up as an interracial child. She goes in depth concerning the treatment she received from both racial spectrums. Thomas presents her first example of unfair treatment from a black person’s perspective by stating how whites reacted when they found out her true identity beyond her physical appearance. She states, “I have had friends never speak to me again, parents forbid their children to play with me, job offers suddenly evaporate…when people found out my father is black” (416). Thomas distinctly uses these examples mainly because they are synonymous with the racial boundaries that blacks endure in an everyday American society. Furthermore, these examples grab the emotions of the reader, especially if the reader is black. To further the influence of pathos in the essay, Thomas changes her direction by focusing on how the black community did not accept her, knowing of her mixture. She provides her second example of society’s ignorance by explaining her...
The conflicts between man and bigotry have caused casualties within man, which caused them to become victims. In the novel Black Boy Richard Wright explores the struggles throughout his life has been the victim of abuse from his coworkers, family, and his classmates, due to this he is able to return his pain and he becomes a victimizer.
Johnson starts with an example of hidden meaning. In the scene where Fern pleads for the to save the life of the newly born runt; Fern states “the pig couldn’t help being born small ... If I had been very small at birth, would you have killed me?” () Fern relates herself to the piglet focusing on the idea that they are the same. Johnson shows the idea that children must develop the idea that there are differences in situation, for instance in this situation Fern sees herself equal to the piglet not as human and animal. Later, after ferns father allows her to keep and care for the piglet the imagination of a child is represented. Fern names the piglet Wilbur, bottle feeding him, pushing him in a stroller, and washing him in a bath. Johnson explains how this scene reflects
This piece of fiction, “Flowers”, is perceived through a historical lens. Showing how Myop steps straight into a piece of her African American history and overcoming the innocence of the young stages in her life. The author uses extreme parallels, dramatic tone swings, many types of literary devices and a unique structure throughout the story to groove the way people read it through a historical lens. It is important because it relates to everyone having to realize the actuality of the real world, how we all got here, and why things are the way they
According to Girlhood Interrupted, the author conducted a study of collected data from authorities that broadened the view on poverty and inequality among black and white girls between the age of 5-19. The adult perception regarded that young black girls are less innocent compared to white girls at a parallel age, indicating that the color of a child’s skin may affect how their actions are perceived. In the study, it was depicted that black girls are less nurturing and comforting, knowledgeable on adult topics, and more independent as opposed to white girls. The “adultification” is misjudging and stereotypical, especially for adolescents as one would assume extensive roles that are powered for adulthood.
Instructor’s comment: This student’s essay performs the admirable trick of being both intensely personal and intelligently literary. While using children’s literature to reflect on what she lost in growing up, she shows in the grace of her language that she has gained something as well: an intelligent understanding of what in childhood is worth reclaiming. We all should make the effort to find our inner child
In Alice Walker’s “The Flowers,” Walker exposes the racial subjugation faced by African- Americans at her time (1970’s). Racism is a detailed word rooted in ignorance and a lack of understanding. It is a word made up of reality that cannot be denied. As children, one does not see white, black, Asian, Hispanic, etc. They are innocent and search skin deep. However, for centuries racism has tainted the human race. To demonstrate, Walker instills this innocent persona of how we should see the main character Myop when she includes, “She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song, the stick clutched in her dark brown hand…tat-de-ta-ta-ta.” (Second paragraph/ Alice Walker). The author includes a healthy mix of direct and indirect characterization to help the readers paint a picture of his young and innocent girl.
In The Lesson, Toni Cade Bambara recounts black life of the New York Harlem in the 1960s. She uses fiction to portray the real life situations of black children in that area. The purpose of this story is to send a message of the reality of the circumstances that black peoples faced in this time by deriving from her own experiences and from the civil rights movement of the time. She tells this story from the viewpoint of a young girl living in Harlem to showcase how the inequality of lifestyles not only affects children, but leaves a lasting impression. Critical race theory is categorically explored because the time period of this piece of writing is of a time when inequality and segregation were still glaringly common and accepted.
"She skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen". This shows how happy Myop is in this setting, we know she feels safe here, "She felt light and good in the warm sun" Her innocence produces an excitement to the reader as it gives the character and the text somewhere to go. We learn that Myop is ten and is African American, however Walker does not present the reader with clear facts but instead reveals it to us. " The stick clutched in her dark brown hand", from the information given she allows the reader to form a visual image of Myop. Walker also highlights the setting around Myop, playing on the character's senses.
In search of Our Mothers’ Garden essay and from the Beauty in Truth film, Alice Walker proves her qualities of being an author in different ways. First of all, she uses literature elements to present her idea. For instance, she use the image of prostitute to express the marriage without contentment in which her mothers and grandmothers were involved. In addition, as an author, Alice Walker gives her point of view about the life of black women who live in the world where their ability are not acknowledge. Finally, Walker shows her spirit of revolution and her desire to see African American women earn their freedom and justice.
The main conflict in “The Flowers” is the clash between ignorance and experience. At the beginning of the story, Myop is portrayed as a naïve and innocent child who was unaware of racial discrimination. Her ignorance was demonstrated when she went outdoors from her house to the smokehouse, singing: “She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song…and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment.” (Walker) This childish behaviour of Myop’s forced her to close her eyes from viewing the previous reality of her race. However, after she had noticed the lynched man on her way home, her innocence dissipated and she began to realize the agony and tortures that African-Americans underwent in the past. Myop’s transformation in personality was displayed