In her short story “Marigolds”, Eugenia Collier, tells the story of a young woman named Lizabeth growing up in rural Maryland during the Depression. Lizabeth is on the verge of becoming an adult, but one moment suddenly makes her feel more woman than child and has an impact on the rest of her life. Through her use of diction, point of view, and symbolism, Eugenia Collier develops the theme that people can create beauty in their lives even in the poorest of situations. Through her use of the stylistic device diction, Eugenia Collier is able to describe to the reader the beauty of the marigolds compared to the drab and dusty town the story is set in. Throughout the story Lizabeth describes Miss Lottie’s marigolds as a “brilliant splash of …show more content…
The author uses the marigolds as a symbol but, their meaning varies between each character. To a young Lizabeth , the marigolds symbolise beauty in a place that it doesn't belong. These beautiful flowers anger a young Lizabeth because she thinks they didn’t belong in the old dusty town she grew up in.To an adult Lizabeth these flowers hold a different meaning, they now represent hope to her. These flowers hold a different meaning to Miss Lottie, to her they represented what was left of love, hope, and beauty in her life. The world she lived in was so ugly and plain and she choose to “create beauty in the midst of [all that] ugliness" (62). This helps to create the theme because even though Miss Lottie had so little she still worked hard to care for the beautiful marigolds. In “Marigolds” the author uses diction, symbolism and point of view, to develop the theme that people can create beauty even in the poorest of situations. Through diction, Collier is able to show the reader the contrast between the beauty of the marigolds compared to the run-down town the story is set in. Through her use of symbolism the author shows how much the marigolds mean to Miss Lottie. Through her use of point of view readers have a clear view of the look and atmosphere of the old town and the how the marigolds were the only beautiful thing
Lizabeth is a dynamic and round character. After overhearing her father cry for the first time, she says, “I had indeed lost my mind, for all the smoldering emotions of that summer swelled in me and burst-the great need for my mother who was never there, the hopelessness of our poverty and degradation, the bewilderment of neither a child nor woman, and yet both at once, the fear unleashed by my father’s tears.” Round characters are people who have many different characteristics and emotions. Through her emotions, she reveals her many conflicting personalities. As Lizabeth reflects on the summer, she distinctly remembers a moment when she was no longer a child, but a woman.
In the short story “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, the theme of there is beauty in life for those who are willing to see it applies to Miss Lottie. Through many children’s eyes, including Lizabeth, the main character, they viewed Miss Lottie as a witch. In reality, she is merely a broken woman who tried to grasp onto the last ray of hope in the shanty town. The marigolds bring joy and love into her life. On page 223 of “Marigolds”, it states, “...only a broken woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility.
Have you ever read the most interesting, life-relatable, fiction book before? One of the most interesting book I’ve read is the Marigolds. The Marigolds is a fiction book by Eugenia Collier. The Marigolds is about a girl named Lizabeth as going through her adolescent years, she realizing the importance of the flowers.
Lizabeth’s “world had lost its boundary line. [Her] mother, who was small and soft, was now the strength of the family; [her] father, who was the rock on which the family had been built on” was comparable to “a broken accordion” and she did not know “where [she] fit” amongst “this crazy”, all she felt was “bewilderment and fear” (Collier 11). Lizabeth lost hope, a beacon of prosperity. Her innocence blinded her to a reality in which life was not perfect. Her beliefs were contradicted by reality and Miss Lottie.
In the story Marigolds, by Eugenia Collier, Lizabeth and the children’s view of Miss Lottie change greatly throughout the story. For example, the group of children thought Miss Lottie, “was a witch and… made up tales that we half believed ourselves about her exploits... But old fears have a way of clinging like cobwebs. ”(21). This shows how they think she is a witch when they are kids, and subconsciously, they still do.
So throughout this paper the symbolism of nature and its effects on the characters will be discussed. Janie mesmerized by the beautiful tree growing in Nanny’s backyard. Climbs the tree to sit in the branches soon realizes what true love means when witnessing of the bees to the blossoms of the pear tree. “She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the
Layers of illusions are burned away and all Paul has left is reality. In Willa Cather’s tragic short story “Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament,” the flowers capture the reality world Paul departs from. For instance, critic Sherry Crabtree asserts that the red carnation symbolizes Paul’s alienation from the world of Cordelia Street (Crabtree 206). Crabtree observes the patterns of how the flowers reveal Paul’s negative outlook on life. On the other hand, some critics claim that the flowers capture the fantasy world Paul envisions.
She is seen with new hope that had not been there the night of the incident. Miss Lottie’s reaction to this childish act had changed Lizabeth’s perspective forever. As the harsh realities flooded her mind, Lizabeth had noticed the immense strength that Miss Lottie possessed. In a world full of hard times and sadness, Miss Lottie planted a garden of hope. When Lizabeth shares the effects that it had on her during her growth, she references her own marigolds.
Marigolds by Eugenia W. Collier and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee are very similar in their settings and moods. For example, in Marigolds the narrator indicates that all she can remember from her hometown is dust and poverty, which shows this was during the Great Depression. This is similar to, To Kill a Mockingbird, because it also takes place during the Great Depression, this displays they have similar settings. Another example is, the mood in Marigolds is very depressing, you get this mood because the narrator says things like, “I suppose the futile waiting was the sorrowful background music of our impoverished little community.” The mood is like this in To Kill a Mockingbird as well.
In the story, “Marigolds”, the author, Eugenia Collier uses imagery, diction and connotation in deep way. One example is of connotation is “... how thick were the bars of our cage”. This gives a negative connotation because it's pointing out how big their poverty is. An example for imagery is “running together and combining like fresh water color painting in the rain”. This shows how she and her friends would run around and play together.
In this excerpt from “The Beet Queen”, by Louise Erdrich, Mary and Karl Adare give the impression as diverse characters. The passage explores their retorts to their surroundings in the environment and of their perspectives around them during the time of depression. Erdrich uses literary devices such as tone, imagery combined with juxtaposition, selection of detail, and point of view to convey the impact from the environment. Erdrich expresses, “And then, either to protect himself or to seize the blooms, Karl reached out and tore a branch from the tree.”
All in all, Woodson is trying to teach the reader that as we grow and change, so do our perspectives. In the beginning, Woodson felt warm, cozy feelings about her town but because of segregation this changed. In the end, Woodson realizes that she changed as well as her perspective. This story shows us that a person’s view and a person changes as they get
Throughout the story, Eugenia Collier uses figurative language to show the emotion that we should have towards these two symbols. She uses words like “warm”(Collier 8), “passionate”(Collier 8), and “sun golden”(Collier 8) to describe the marigolds like the hope people have in life, while she uses words like “haunted”(Collier 12), and a “ramshackle”(Collier 7) are used to describe Miss Lottie's house. The audience can then interpret how the marigolds stand for the warm, passionate hope people have in life. Therefore, the place where these marigolds are found, stands for the hopelessness that many characters in the story and in real life go through. This can obviously create empathy in the reader by showing how beautiful, warm and passionate hope can still bloom in
These images show Wordsworth’s relationship with nature because he personifies this flower allowing him to relate it and become one with nature.
In the short story “The Flowers”, Alice Walker sufficiently prepares the reader for the texts surprise ending while also displaying the gradual loss of Myop’s innocence. The author uses literary devices like imagery, setting, and diction to convey her overall theme of coming of age because of the awareness of society's behavior. At the beguining of the story the author makes use of proper and necessary diction to create a euphoric and blissful aura. The character Myop “skipped lightly” while walker describes the harvests and how is causes “excited little tremors to run up her jaws.”. This is an introduction of the childlike innocence present in the main character.