Share your literary essay with the rest of the students that chose this short story. Take some time to read 2 or 3 other essays. Comment on them. Your comment should be about something you noticed them doing well from our lessons. For example, "You did a really good job explaining your evidence."
The Flowers Essay
ReplyDeleteThe short story The Flowers, written by Alice Walker is about a young girl named Myop who likes to go for walks in the woods, but one day she finds something that she will never forget. From the traumatizing experience, the author uses it to show us that you can easily lose your innocence from those traumatic events.
The traumatic event that Myop went through is that she found a body that was hung. The man was probably a black man and hung by a white man; this is called lynching. Myop had discovered this and laid down the flowers she had. Therefore, the dead man signifies that having a traumatic event can be imprinted on you and you will never forget it. This was one of the events that showed that traumatizing events can be very scary.
Another way the author shows traumatic events can make you lose innocence is through the setting. This short story was written in the 1960s when lynching was used for a crime of being black. Myop had felt sorry for him with what was done and so she had lost her innocence. In other words, she lost her innocence by seeing the dead body and feeling very sorry for him.
The setting also shows us that the culture of this is very saddening for Myop of seeing this dead body.
The last thing the author uses to show us that traumatic events are hard for us to get over is through figurative language. One form of figurative language is imagery. A line from the story showing imagery is “Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled - barely there - but spinning restlessly in the breeze”. This line of imagery shows the mood of the story where Myop lays down her flowers and loses her innocence.
The second form of figurative language is the part where she loses her innocence on the last line of the story, “The Summer was over”. Therefore, this is where the story shows were her childhood is over and her innocence is lost. This is something she would never forget.
Although this could be interpreted as Civil Rights, it clearly is a loss of innocence because of the last line where her innocence of seeing the body is lost. Through Myop’s experience of seeing the dead body, it shows that traumatizing events can make you lose your innocence, just like Myop.
‘’The Flowers’’ is a short story by Alice Walker that is in the 1950 or 60’s. When myop goes for a walk for flowers she stumble into a marsh and finds a dead body. This show that a traumatic event in someone's life can cause a loss of innocence.
ReplyDeleteThe meadows was her innocence and when she was going into the marsh she was growing up. Therefore this show when she walked into the marsh she was losing her innocence.
This was taken place down in the south where slave were getting hung and myop was an African American. Also the body was an African American. In other word this traumatic event can make someone lose their innocence.
Also when she see the dead body she was start to become scared or shocked. THis show that she acted sard and lost her innocence. This could be interpreted as being shocked or scared, butbut clearly is means a big event can cause a loss of innocence because she loses her innocence at the end of the book.
‘’And the summer is over.’’ That means she was growing up. That means that when she grows up she lost her innocence as a child.
‘’Myop laid down the flower.’’That is also a sign she lost her innocence. The flowers was her innocence and putting them down is her losing her innocence.
At the end of the story she found the body and keep looking and looking at the body. That’s why a big event in somebody's life can cause a loss of innocence.
“Eraser Tattoo” by Jason Reynolds. A girl is moving away from her boyfriend so she wants to do an eraser tattoo so he will remember her when she moves away. Shay and Dante have been friends since they were little. When Shay is doing the tattoo they talked about how they fell in love and how they knew they liked each other. Love can last through time and separation.
ReplyDeleteShay wants to give her boyfriend Dante something that he will remember her. While Shay is doing the tattoo she said “How about when you first told me you loved me? The first time.” Then she also said, “No we were five that ain’t count.” Dante said, “I did love juice boxes.” In this case, it shows how their relationship started out and how they mess around with each other.
Dante said “Whatever. I just wanna make sure before you move you get this part of the story straight. So I told I loved, but this I said it for real. And you said……” Shay sighed “And I said No doubt, Homie.” Their relationship in this part of the story shows that
In the story, the eraser symbolisms that their love will last forever or they will always remember each other.
While doing the tattoo Shay asked if it hurts” and Dante says “No” but it actually feels like someone was trying to strike a match on his flesh. Dante loves and cares about Shay.
In middle of doing the tattoo, she says “Am I not worth the pain”Dante says “Whatever Shay. Ain’t like your getting my initials.” After that shay asks slyly “Hurt” Dante returned “A little.” but it actually does hurt.Although It might be argued Shay doesn’t care about Dante she actually cares about him a lot. Dante lies to her so she won’t feel bad or get sad.
Shay and Dante have been friends since they were in elementary school. Dante first said I love you in 1st grade at that time he said “I love you” to everyone even his juice boxes, but when they get older he starts to mean it. During high school, their relationship grows and they realize love can last through time and separation.
“The Flowers” by Alice Walker is a short story that takes place during the mid-20th century in the slave-era of the United States. In this story, a young black girl named Myop is out behind her sharecropper house picking a bouquet of flowers. Along the way, she stumbles along a dead man's body. It takes her a while to realize what had happened until she finds an old, rotted noose. Growing in the middle is “a wild pink rose.” In this story, Walker uses the noose and the rose to enforce the fact that growing up is apart of life an along the way, things happen which lead to a loss of innocence.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of the story, the author talks about sunny skies and bright weather. These details help to explain how the young Myop feels during the beginning of the story as she explores the woods. Enjoying her childhood.
As the story goes on, the mood gets more depressing because the strangeness of the land makes Myop uncomfortable. She no longer is familiar with her surroundings. Myop is warrier now, and starts to head back home. As readers, we know something is going to happen.
The symbolism Walker used to portray different things can also help support the theme. The flowers play a role in the theme by representing Myops childhood. Each one she picks is a good memory or experience that she adds to her bouquet or life. Since Myop is only ten years old, she is still innocent and doesn’t know much about the real world quite yet.
After Myop finds the man’s body, a wild rose catches her eye. Then, as she goes to pick it, she notices the “Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled” remains of a noose. Parts of the noose are laying around the rose that Myop is picking. To put it differently, this symbolizes innocence fading away. The rose is her last childhood memory before she has to grow up. Her last chance to be an innocent little girl.
In the last two sentences, Walker writes, “Myop laid down her flowers. And the summer was over.” This can be interpreted as Myop accepting the fact that she’s growing up, so she lays down her flowers or innocence. The sentence about summer suggests Myop is finally growing up and leaving most of her childhood behind. Her innocence coming to an end.
Waker uses imagery in this story to enhance what is being read. The details towards the end of the story bring out the meaning of the theme by drawing the readers in. In the last couple of lines of “The Flower”, Walker worries about “an overhanging limb of a great spreading oak”. The imagery in this part of the story is like a warning sign, telling us that what we are reading here is important. This paragraph enhances the theme by letting us know where to look for it.
Another piece of imagery would be the section where Myop steps on the man. This part of the story is important to the theme because by describing the tall, white-toothed, long-fingered man dressed in what used to be blue denim overalls with buckles turned green, Walker puts our another sign saying, “Hey, this is also important!” this section supports the theme of Myop losing her innocence by allowing the reader to notice that Myop is recognizing the evil in the world. She is seeing things like the man being hanged. Some people might think the theme would be something like racism, but the descriptive words and the last couple of sentences lead readers to think that it is actually a loss of innocence.
In the short story, “The Flowers”, Alice Walker creates the theme of loss of innocence by using symbolism to work in the idea of Myop and her childhood. She also uses setting to give readers a feel of the story and imagery about the dead man’s body and the willow tree to let us know where to look.
PART 1
ReplyDeleteIn “The Flowers”, Alice Walker opens us up to an inevitable part of life; growing up, and shows us how along the way you lose your innocence. Walker tells the tale of Myop, a ten-year-old girl with an active imagination and a thirst for life. The story unfolds as Myop walks along a trail collecting flowers and comes across something unsavory; the body of a man who previously passed. The short story’s plot is structured in such a way to reveal lost innocence over childhood to adulthood while also being conveyed in symbolic form. Giggly Myop had no idea what she was in for, as many do not, when she began her journey.
Blossoming in Myop throughout her journey is pure joy and curiosity as she eagerly moves from one place to the next. On her trails, she begins to collect flowers of all sorts. The more she gains the more time she loses and the farther she gets from her starting point. “Her arms laden with sprigs of her findings, she was a mile or more from home.” These flowers symbolize her innocence and what takes her on her happy adventure.
As she approaches the relative location of the man, she begins to feel wary of her surroundings and “the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant as her usual haunts.” Right away, she knows that something is off. She decides to turn back and make her way home when suddenly she steps unto the man and strangling she attempts to free herself. Myop’s foot is finally relieved and she steps back to get a better look at her captor. At this point, she is uncomfortable but not frightened for she doesn’t know what exactly it is she sees. All she can think to do is lay down her flowers, release her innocence, and leave in a state of uncertainty and discontent. After being faced with an unfortunate reality, Myop sets aside her flowers, no longer feeling she can go on with them.
When Myop began her walk, “she felt light and good in the warm sun.” Alive with enthusiasm on this summer day Myop is cheerful and full of love. She had no reason to think anything wrong and went about her day collecting flowers and skipping through her family’s farm. The summer is a time of being playful in the sun. You can be as silly as you want and therefore Myop did. She was all smiles until she came upon the man. With her arms full of flowers, her innocence and purity soaring, she met the man. It was at this moment she changed and laid down her flowers. Walker concludes the story with “And the summer was over.” which leaves much to the reader’s imagination and interpretation. Summer was this amazing time for Myop and when she suddenly was confronted by a real-life situation, it was over. Much like childhood; a time of being playful and living freely. It’s when things become serious that we need to lay down our innocence and advance to a state of adulthood.
When faced with such a frightening circumstance, the viewer will surely be affected. Myop not only came across a deceased man but one who was lynched. At only ten, she was exposed to one truth of her world. While some may argue this conveys the issue of racism, Myop’s happy adventure was truly affected at the sight of the noose rather than the man’s situation. This pivotal part in the short story depicted a wild pink rose, the flower to end all flowers. It was when she went to pick it that she saw the noose, strangling the rose at its root, and it was then that her heart dropped. “And summer was over.” Childhood ended where the noose began, strangling innocence, and with that Myop was changed.
PART 2
ReplyDeleteThe format of “The Flowers” is constructed in such a way as to portray the sudden transition between childhood and adulthood and the point in which you find yourself losing your simple innocence. As summer went on, Myop couldn’t have been happier. She “skipped lightly” everywhere she went and “nothing existed for her but her song”. Life was simple. Optimism exuded her all to a point. Myop encountered real-life issues and it overcame her. She went from her silly self to someone who does notice an obvious feeling of gloom. The final line of “The Flowers” is absolutely haunting. You can’t help but feel empty yet you’ve never been more at peace. Written out is this revelation. It’s quite sudden and unexpected.
Myop was far from home. This fact alone could make anyone uncomfortable and it was such a change from what Myop was used to. All throughout summer, she went on these walks. Further and further from home, she went but her state of ease could only be pushed so much. When she found herself farther from where she wanted to be it was too late so she faced the facts and that’s when summer ended. It’s a relatable circumstance, much like a student arriving at college. Walker composed “The Flowers” in a familiar way that the reader can correlate with their experiences. It only takes this connection to engage the reader.
“The Flowers” is simply captivating. When you can identify with a story your understanding of it heightens as does your interest. Walker conveyed to her readers this feeling of loss of innocence and allowed them to empathize with growing up. Myop began naively and despite leaving uncertain she knew she was changed. Childhood is so cheerful but when playtime is over, you must put away your flowers, and walk on.
"The Flowers" by Alice Walker is a short story that takes place in the south during the mid-twentieth century. Myop, a creative girl with a bubbly attitude goes out in search of flowers and finds something that changes her perspective forever. While searching, Myop comes across a dark, damp area of the forest. There she finds the body of a dead African American man who had previously been lynched during the reconstruction era. The author uses many different techniques throughout the story to show the theme of loss of innocence. Traumatic events like the one that happened to Myop can cause life-altering problems. But this mostly leads Myop down an uncomfortable path from childhood to adulthood. This change can sometimes be very abrupt or rough, and even if you're not ready for it, it happens.
ReplyDeleteDuring the story, Myop walks through a bright, lively forest full of flowers and sprigs. The forest is full of welcoming items and makes Myop feel happy and comfortable with her situation in life. As the story goes on though, Myop’s walk turns gloomy and the forest gets dark and scary. Myop begins to feel unsettled and worried and decides to turn around and go home. The setting represents how life for Myop was, and how it was going to change. Myop’s attitude, which was once light and airy, had now turned depressing, as well as the setting.
At the beginning of the tale, Alice Walker starts the story off with a very lighthearted forest scene. Walker says things like “blue flowers with velvety ridges and a sweet suds bush full of brown fragrant buds.” Walker uses these phrases to imply Myop’s innocence and curious manner.
“Arms laden with sprigs of her findings.” This quote relates to the fact that flowers symbolize Myop’s innocence. Myop walks through the forest and picks flowers, but when she sets down the flowers at the end of the story, her childhood came to a close. While it could be argued that this story is about racism, this quote gives clear evidence relating to Myop’s childhood and loss of innocence.
The author also uses symbolism as a way to imply the theme. Summer represents Myop’s childhood. In the story, Alice Walker writes “ Myop laid down her flowers. And summer was over.” When Myop comes across this body, she realizes that this is what life is like. She finds a whole different side to life, a dark and ever-changing side.
In the short story, flowers represent Myops innocence, when she sets down her flowers, her childhood is done, and there’s no going back. At the start of the story, Myop’s attitude starts happy and cheerful while she’s searching for flowers through the “happy” part of the forest. But afterward, she realizes that it was all a temporary thing, and all flowers die one way or another.
“She noticed a raised mound, a ring around the rose's root.” The remnants of the noose around the rose symbolize Myop’s innocence coming to a close. In this story, flowers represent innocence and childhood. The noose represents the changes going on in Myop’s life. Therefore the noose around the rose symbolizes how changes in Myop’s life have trapped her innocence.
The author uses setting imagery, and symbolism to enforce the theme of loss of innocence and growing up. Growing up is a part of life, and it happens to everyone. It is important to remember that Myop is quite content with her quiet and uncomplicated life. All Myop knows are her long walks searching for flowers and breezy summer days. But on the negative side of the spectrum, growing up happens whether your ready for it or not and things happen that can seriously change everything. No matter how things go in life, things are constantly changing and struggles, big or small, are a regular occurrence.
“The Flowers”is a short story by Alice Walker. It is set between the 1890s and 1950s. Myop, a ten year old African-American girl lives taking walks in the woods near her home to pick wildflowers.
ReplyDeleteOne day, in the seemingly beautiful heat of summer she takes a new path that she’s never tread before. When she’s far enough from home, she turns around to make the journey back. As Myop is walking and gathering more flowers as she goes, her foot gets caught in something. Myop looks down to see that it is the remains of a dead body and her foot is stuck in its skull. Unfazed, she steps out and proceeds to bend to pick a wild rose. As Myop goes to pluck it, the notices a noose surrounding the roots of the flower. Putting two and two together, she sets don her bundle of flowers with a horrorstruck look on her face.
I think the theme of this story is that childhood innocence can manage to ignore a lot, but some events are too much to handle.
One way the author chose to show this is through her strong use of symbolism. The flowers that Myop loves to pick and seems so happy in doing so represent her innocence. With attention to the fact that the author chooses to paint a picture in our minds of a blissful Myop with a bundle of flowers. As she is picking flowers and frolicing about, everything seems to be perfect. When she realized the corpse was murdered in the form of lynching, she drops the flowers. Since the flowers are put down after a horrible event like that, we can gather that the flowers stood for her innocence.
Another way the author shows us the theme; childhood innocence can manage to ignore some things, but some events are too much to handle is by where she chose to tell it at. Including things like the fact that Myop lived in a sharecropper cabin with “rusty boards” which she doesn’t seem bothered by at all. In the beginning, the author describes the day by writing “It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been as beautiful as these.” Myop is clearly enjoying the day. Walker also chooses to inform us that Myop’s family gets their drinking water from a stream nearby. In a time where there is already running water in houses, this tells us that Myop’s family seems to be less fortunate than most. Again this does not bother her. Myop is also African-American alive in a time where unpunished lynching of African-Americans is common. She does not seem to be aware of this until she is face to face with the real thing. Although it could be argued that the theme shown here was that African-Americans were not treated fairly, the text actually shows that it is more about innocence.
The final way Alice Walk tries to show the theme in is through figurative language. At the end of the story it says “And the summer was over.” Summer in this sentence seems to represent her childhood. Since innocence and childhood go hand in hand, it seems to point to the theme. This metaphor happens right after Myop puts down her flowers. As previously mentioned, the flowers stand for her innocence. When she drops her flowers her innocence is gone and when the summer has “ended” so has her childhood. Just like innocence and childhood go together, so do flowers and summer. All of these things can end or die.And just like life, when things end new things begin.
“The Flowers” by Alice Walker is a short story about a young girl who goes flower picking. Whilst she is flower picking she comes across a deceased man. Because Myop is so young she is still innocent, the author uses the discovery to teach us an important lesson. How the world can be an awful place and how it can change your perception.
ReplyDeleteMyop’s innocence is the main factor of the story. The setting is also key in showing us her innocence. The author uses the setting to represent the world. Myop is in a forest described as silent and gloomy. As well as the fact that she is far from home.
The forest she is in isn’t joyful as she thought earlier. Something is off and she can feel it. She states she is unsure as well as the fact that it’s “gloomy”. The silence was “close and deep”. The author uses this description as a way of describing the world (forest) an how it isn’t all good and fun. That it’s actually awful.
Another way the setting contributes to delivering the theme is when Myop states she is a “mile or so from home”. This was used to show that she isn’t close to home. Myop was being exposed to the world for what it really was without the protection of family hiding it from her. She isn’t being hidden from the truth that the world is a big ugly place.
When she finds the dead man it shows us a lot. She wasn’t scared at all, as if she wasn’t aware of what she had just discovered. She does come to realize later what she had just stumbled upon. The is shows us her innocence draining away with her realization. The author did this on purpose.
As Myop discovers the body she is still innocent. However she is making a realization about the world. At first she didn’t comprehend it. When she stepped into is decaying body she “reached down quickly, unafraid, to free herself.” Some could say it had nothing to do with innocence and she was just in shock, however the author states she is unafraid. This shows us it was innocence.
At the end Myop understands, she lays down her flowers she collected and says “the summer was over”. This line is showing us that she is letting her innocence go. She is leaving behind the flowers as well as the shiny beautiful summer. Thus letting her innocence go.
“The Flowers” was quite short. Which means every line and sentence contributes something to the theme. It was full of figurative language. Such as imagery, when she describes the last remain of the cloth and slight rhyme. Most of the time figurative language means it's important to the development of the story so these parts were very impactful on the theme.
The first piece of figurative language is imagery. The cloth was “frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled -barely there-”. This piece of cloth was a clear representation of what’s left of her innocence. And the cloth is frayed like her innocence. It shows us that her innocence is barely there and destroyed from her discovery when she is realizing the ugly truth.
Another element of figurative language used was rhyme. It is quite subtle. The rhyme is shown when Myop discovers the dead man and is exploring his body. (Seeing as Myop is black and we know this man was black as well as lynched we know it had something to do with racism.) Myop “pushed back the leaves and layers of earth and debris.” This is showing us how she is exploring the tragedy, discovering racism and how the world is quite an ugly place.
Near the end, Myop discovers a wild pink rose. When she goes to pick it up she notices it is surrounded by a noose. The rotted remains of it to be precise. And with this one can assume that Myop is the rose. She is the wild pink rose, so innocent, surrounded in a deep dark place. Myop is in this awful world full of racism and pain. She is surrounded by the world just as the rose was surrounded by the noose. She finally realizes after the rose discovery. Last releases her flowers letting her summer go. And that is where it ends. We’re unsure of what happens to Myop, only that she is set off into the world with her newly discovered knowledge.
In the short story “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, a young girl named Myop found herself wandering in the woods, picking flowers along the way. She came upon a dead body, who had been hung and remained decomposing for quite some time. She then laid the flowers she held onto the ground; the story ending with the sentence “and then the summer was over.” leading to show the theme of “Innocence doesn’t last forever”.
ReplyDeleteThere are many ways the theme is portrayed, one of which being imagery. At the beginning of the story, Myop is described as skipping through the grass; which is seen as youthful or childlike. Nearing the end of the story, the author describes the body and noose in a dark and gloomy way, showing how the event changed Myops general view of the world.
Another way the theme is shown is through setting. The story takes place somewhere between when slavery was coming to an end, to when it fully ended in 1865. This is important to the story as both Myop and the body were African American. However, some might view this portion of the story to show the theme of “racism”, when that just isn’t the case. Though racism plays a huge role in the story, it's important to realize that racism is one of the ways Myop loses her innocence. The body she came across was hung, and it very well could’ve been lynched. Myop will one day find out how African Americans were mistreated and as an African American herself, that can be especially hard; even scary to some.
Symbolism is also one of the most important ways theme is shown. Nearing the end of the story, the line “she laid down her flowers...” uses symbolism that may first go unnoticed. Before that line, Myop had seen the body and laid the flowers from her arms onto it. However, the flowers also can symbolize her innocence; showing that she has a different view of the world after the event. This can be said for the next line “...and then the summer was over”. The summer symbolizing her childhood and how that portion of her life is over and the world isn’t as happy as it seems.
In the end, this story uses a lot of textual evidence to show the theme, such as imagery, setting, and symbolism. Alice Walker shares outlook on a common experience that young kids go through, even if it's not the same as Myop’s. For some kids, it's harder than others to realize the world’s not as happy as it seems, and for now, we’re left wondering how Myop dealt with this experience; and where she is now.
‘The Flower’ a short story by Alice Walker, the story is about a young African-American girl who lives on a sharecrop and spends most of her days playing behind her home or in the woods, the short story is also about the loss of innocence. The young girl, Myop, one day goes out in the back in the woods and steps into a dead man's face. She quickly retrieves her foot and finds a pink rose next to the body. She picks the rose up and finds a noose right next to it. She then puts together what happened to the man and lays down her rose and flowers, her summer was then over.
ReplyDeleteWhen Myops finds and steps into the dead man's face the author was very descriptive “Her heel became lodged in the broken ridge between brow and nose, and she reached down quickly, unafraid, to free herself. “ This part like many others are vividly and very well described by the author. Once she finds the noose next to the pink rose she lays down her flower down implying the loss of her innocence and the last of the noose hanging her innocence slowly dying.
‘’And the summer is over.’’ and ‘’Myop laid down the flower.’’ is a part of the story where she is finally growing up and knows what happened to the man. These two-part strongly show how Myop was losing her innocence with vivid descriptions and symbolism. In the end, Myop finally understood what had happened and an event like this can truly affect and traumatize a young person.
The Flowers Essay
ReplyDeleteIn the short story “The Flowers” written by Alice Walker, the story is about a young ten year old girl named Myop.The story begins with Myop skipping lightly from the hen house, to the pig pen, and to the smoke house. Myop decides to go into the woods behind her house and pick flowers, on her journey she goes a little further than she usually does and discovers the remains of a dead body.
Myop had made this discovery by accidently getting her foot stuck in his empty eye socket, quickly unafraid to free herself. She only let out a yelp of surprise when she saw his naked grin. He had been a tall man, his teeth were all white and all of them were cracked or broken, he had long fingers and very big bones. All of his clothes had rotted away except for some threads of a blue denim from his overalls. The buckles of his overalls turned green.
She searches around the spot in interest and then spots something that caught her eye. She saw pink rose up ahead of the path, she picked it up and added it to her bundle and then saw something strange from where she had picked up the rose. “As she picked up it to add to her bundle she noticed a raised mound, a ring around the rose’s roots. It was the rotted remains of a noose, a bit of shredding plowline, now blending benignly into the soil. Around an overhanging limb of a great oak clung another piece. Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled- barely there- but spinning restlessly in the breeze”. She soon realises that she has discovered the dead body of a man who had been hung, “Myop laid down her flowers. And the summer was over”. When she placed down her flowers she had lost her innocence.
In the short story “The flowers” by Alice Walker, we follow the day of Myop, a young black girl living on a sharecropper farm. She grows up in beautiful surrounding, presumably in the country, so safely we can assume she's innocent, happy, and free of worries, since what would she have to worry about? Growing up in the country.
ReplyDeleteOn the day we follow Myop, she is walking around her farm picking flowers, beautiful flowers that the author puts an emphasis on, like her surroundings and I feel as though this really sets the mood that this is a beautiful place and life. This setting that the author made is what I really think she was aiming for. This book was made to send a message, and that different people will take different messages out of it.
SInce Myop is growing upon a sharecropper farm, it's safe to assume this was in the early 90s, in Alabama, Mississippi or one of the other southern states, and during this time period racism was prevalent, and harsh which lead to lynchings, racism, and the deaths of multiple black people due to killings. This is still a problem today, but back then what white people would do is lynching, where they would hang black people to their death.
As the story follows, on Myops normal walk, she took a different route through the forest, and as she went along the author made sure to feel that this is a ominous and scary place. Moreso that its uncomfortable, and as shes finishing her walk, she walks straight through a skull. The skull was large, and had frayed bits of rope hanging around it. Myop doesn't seem to be shocked, but surprised as though this is a normal occurrence but thats until she realized what it was.
While this could be a actually black man, lynched, and killed, and rotted away. I feel as though the dead body signifies a traumatic event in her life, and a roadblock for her life. It could be rape, death, sickness, or others which only at first she didn't realize what this is, but then she did, and she realized The world she lives in and that it isn't only the beautiful thing she knows.
After she sees this and realizes this, the story end and her summer was over. I believe that everyone has a summer, and everyone summer will eventually end, leading to a winter, some harsher than others, but it always goes back to summer, back to the life they know. It's just that not every summer is the same and I feel like this is a lesson that can be learned for everyone in their life, and appreciated by all.
In the short story called ‘The Flowers’ by Alice Walker, a little girl who is going about her day looking for wildflowers. As this young girl comes across flowers she also unfortunatly comes across a rotting corpse. This girl plays an important role in what the author is trying to teach us by this story becasuse she is still fairly young and innocent.
ReplyDeleteThe story first takes place in the late 1800s after the civil war. What makes this setting and story unique is the time it takes place and how the reader gets to have a peek into a young girls life a long time ago. The main character is a young and innocent 10-year-old African-American girl named Myop who works in a share crop and lives on a farm. She and her family are most likely slaves and this makes her life also mor edifficult which is representing the obsticles in which life throws at us. But because she is so young she doesn't fully process the event and the author through this story is trying to teach us that the world isn’t the way we think it is when we are innocent in our mind when we are young and as we grow up we see the truth, lose our innocence, and realize that not everyhting in the world is what we sometimes see it to be.
In the beginning of the story, Walker portays Myops innocence by adding a lighthearted, happy mood to the description. In this she uses descriptive sentences like “blue flowers with velvety ridges and a sweet suds bush full of brown fragrant buds.” Walker uses these phrases to imply Myop’s innocence and curious way of thinking.
“Arms laden with sprigs of her findings.” This quote is another example of how the flowers represent Myop’s innocence. Myop goes through the forest throughout the story but at the end she lays down her flowers symbolizing that her innocence is gone and her childhood has come to an end.
“Her heel became lodged in the broken ridge between brow and nose, and she reached down quickly, unafraid, to free herself. “ This quote is a description of when Myop is still going through the forest is far away from home and stumbles along a rotting corpse.
When going through the forest Myop accidentally comes across a corpse by stepping into it. She sees the corpse unafraid then sees the remains of the “Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled” noose hanging.
The body she found represented how when you grow up you find things to be different than as you saw them as a child and how as you grow there are more obsicles you have to face this is to support the theory that the lesson is that things are not always as they seem to be.
“She noticed a raised mound, a ring around the rose's root.” The remains of the noose used to hang the man around the rose symbolize Myop’s innocence coming to an end. In this story, flowers represent innocence and childhood. The noose represents the changes going on in Myop’s life. Therefore the noose around the rose symbolizes how changes in Myop’s life havesurrounded her and her innocence.
Only until after she frees herself from the body does she notice a pink rose next to the body “She noticed a raised mound, a ring around the rose's root.”
She picks this rose and lays it down with the rest of her flowers after she slowly realixes what has happened. After this and while this happens and when she lays down all her flowers her innocence is dying and when she lays them down this symbolizes her childhood is over and her innocence is lost forever.
“Myop laid down her flowers. And the summer was over.”
The flowers
ReplyDelete“The flowers” is a short story by Alice Walker. The story takes place in the late 1800’s. A young African American girl named Myop Stumbles upon a dead body while picking flowers, she doesn't really understand what happened until she finds a noose. Myop also realizes that the man was the same skin color as her. Myop slowly figures out what happened to the dead man and “The summer was over”. The phrase “The summer was over” represents her innocence being over.
Myop is a sweet and innocent ten year old girl, since she is only ten years old she can not fully process the event. The event that happens is a traumatizing experience, especially for someone that young. The event most likely really scared her, In this event she loses her innocence and this is symbolized with figurative language.
Like I said before, The Event that happens is very traumatizing for a young girl. The steps that lead up to the event are.. Myop was picking roses as she steps on a head and goes to pick up a rose to add to her bundle, while picking the flower she notices a ring around the roots of the flower and realizes it is the rotted remains of a noose, then she lies her flowers down, and “The summer was over”.
In the short story every little thing represents something, for example the noose represents her innocence slowly disappearing. Another example is, when she lies down the flowers it is her innocence being pulled away from her. The flowers then represent her innocence because when she