Coming Of Age In Alice Walker's 'The Flowers'

“Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier is a personal narrative of the challenges that adolescents face with coming of age. The author is able to accurately capture the voice of her younger self-using literary devices such as imagery, juxtaposition, and diction. The author uses these literary devices to give the reader a precise representation of the struggles she surpassed, which pushed her towards adulthood.

Eugenia Collier, the author of the short story Marigolds makes great use of literary devices such as imagery, diction, flashback, and juxtaposition in a way that creates a voice for the narrator that conveys both the regret over, and possibly the longing for her childhood. The diction, that is, the vocabulary choice is expertly combined with imagery, or the unique descriptions and sensory details, in order to allow the reader to formulate the experiences and the surroundings of the narrator's childhood in their imaginations. Flashback is used to allow the narrator to not only explain how she viewed the events of her past as a child, but to compare these views with her adult feelings of the same events. Juxtaposition aids in further explaining the connection between the setting and emotions of the main character, creating a better picture of the narrator’s life. These elements all combine to construct a narrative that effectively conveys the coming of age theme.

     Frost moves onto autumn and shows what little life is left begins to wither and fall, or as he put it in the first line of the third set ?Then leaf subsides to leaf.? The playful spirit of the young is lost in time as age quickly pours what seems like endless duties upon adults. Things once learned are forgotten and the sun creeps slowly below the horizon. Time once again takes it toll on all things living

I’m sure all teens have thrown a fit. Consequently, we all wish we wouldn’t have. In the story “Marigolds” Lizabeth throws a temper tantrum and then immediately regrets it. Lizabeth’s childish acting resulted in her noticing she should've handled the situation better. The theme of “Marigolds” is maturation leads to a deeper understanding of life. This theme of “Marigolds” demonstrates Lizabeth’s change in attitude throughout the story just as maturation affects every modern teen.

There comes a point in one’s life when they must recognize the hardships placed upon them, and instead of being ignorant of those hardships, they must confront them head-on. In “Marigolds”, a short story by Eugenia Collier, the main protagonist, Lizabeth, encounters various struggles that come with living in a poor town in rural Maryland during the Depression, allowing her to learn more about growing up and accepting reality with all its flaws. Lizabeth is a 14-year-old girl who feels a conflict between her inner child and her inner woman, as she is unable to do anything that satisfies both sides of her. She feels too old to be a child, yet too young to be a

     When her father passed away she had nobody to tell her what to do and how to act. This was very devastating and she had a hard time dealing with change. So much so that she wouldn't let the police take the body of her father out of the house for three days after his death. The only thing that was constant in her house was the slave

“The Flowers” uses the main point of racism in the south and the lynching of African Americans to create an internal message that can still be applied to today. It represents a coming of age story and the loss of childhood

Alice Walker “The Flowers” is a literary piece in which violence is not presented but suggested , and not experienced, but witnessed. Alice Walker is a contemporary African-American writer who is mainly concerned with racism. She has worked to address problems of poverty and inequality. Originally written in 1970, it is set in the south of America and is about Myop a small 10- year old African-American girl who explores the place where she lives with her black family. Alice Walker succeeded in employing symbolism to highlight childhood innocence and the loss of it.

Alice Walkers "Roselily" is a short story about a woman who is about to be married, but is having second thoughts about the marriage. She is also looking into the past and the future trying to make sense of what is happening. Roselily is being torn between choosing between her current or possible future Economic status, Societies view of her, her religion and her freedom. All these thoughts go through her mind as the wedding ceremony takes place, and she begins to wonder if she has made the right choice is marrying this man.

The story is set in the woods of Mississippi near Natchez in the 1940’s. When Welty says, “She carried a thin, small cane made from an umbrella.” it shows that people used what they had at hand. Old Phoenix Jackson had an apron made from old sugar sacks. In this era items were made to last or to be reused for a different application as opposed to the modern era where everything is disposable.

Mama’s harsh upbringing frames her perspective on the world. During Mama’s childhood, she faces a harsh world chock full of microaggressions and racial prejudice alike. Despite all of the factors working negatively in Mama’s favor, she successfully clambered out of her original pit of societal oppression, and instead took residence in a society a tier above that of her upbringing. The cornerstone of Mama’s dream is the concept of a home with a garden, wherein family can grow up and prosper: “Well, I always wanted me a garden like I used to see sometimes at the back of the houses down home. This plant is close as I ever got to having one” (Hansberry, 53). Although this dream might seem meager through a contemporary looking-glass, black people were systematically denied homes prior to and including the mid-nineteenth century, therefore Mama’s dream demonstrates her direct wish to live a life

Most of the time there is a moment in life where one realizes they have lost all innocence and gained some compassion.  “Marigolds” shows how one young girl transferred from a child to young adult through her life experiences.  Throughout this story another young, but at the same time old in her prime, lady’s experiences are revealed:  the author’s.  In this short story, “Marigolds,” Eugenia Collier’s subconscious is unmasked through symbolism, diction, and Lizabeth’s actions.

First , we see In theses poems, the act of creation is pictured as a kind of self-harvesting; the pen harvests the fields of the brain, and books are filled with the resulting "grain" . In "To Autumn", the metaphor is developed further, the sense of coming loss that permeates the poem confronts the sorrow underlying the season's creativity. When Autumn's harvest is over, the fields will be bare, the swaths wit their "twined flowers" cut

There are less ominous words, like “granary” (l. 14), or “gleaner” (l. 19), but also words symbolically representing death, such as “half-reap’d” (l. 16), “hook” (l. 17), or “cyder-press” (l. 21). The burden of harvest (or death), however, is weakened by depicting Autumn, the reaper, as idle, soft, passive, and sleepy. They are only half-working, taking part, but not in all seriousness (“sitting careless”, l. 14, “sound asleep”, l. 16 …).

Walker is the daughter of a sharecropper who lived in the south. As a child she endured