"The Flowers" by Alice Walker Essay

The loss of Myop’s innocence in this story was powerful, and sad at the same time; it represents a time in which black people, especially female black women had no freedom; Myop is shown the cruelties of the world by the time the story ends.

How can someone pursue a personal desire if they spent their life trying to conform? Alden Nowlan’s short story, “The Glass Roses” explores this through the protagonist, Stephen. Stephen’s personal desire to feel accepted conflicts with his feeling of having to become like the pulp cutters because he is not mentally or physically ready to fit in with grown men. This results in Chris finding a way to become his own person. Stephen’s journey to pursue his personal desire is shown through setting, character development, and symbolism.

In the short story “Flowers” by Alice Walker, she uses the motif of blindness and disease to dramatize Myop’s loss of innocence. Myop is given the name for a major symbolic reason. Her name is short for “Myopia,” which is a given to short sightedness. This metaphor is brought into play to show Myop’s naivety in the beginning of the story. Also in the beginning, the author mentions her name a numerous amount of times. The repetition of her name implies that she is blind to the realities of the world happening around her. As the story progresses, the author reduces the use of Myop’s name. This suggests that Myop begins to open her eyes and finally see the world as it is with all of its harsh realities. The name “Myop” could also be short for

However, as this fantasy is naive alike to one of a juvenile, it could foreshadow the fact that such foolish dreams are never to be realised. Along with this there are other negativities suggested, and it is evident that all may not be as perfect as it first appeared to be. Even the nearest town, Soledad, mentioned in the first sentence of the book translates from Spanish in to the English for ‘lonely’, striking a melancholy note into the beauty of the idyllic scene. The ‘sycamores’ have echoes of death about them, their ‘mottled, white, recumbent limbs’ are expressed as though they were decaying cadavers. Those who visit this peaceful scene most often are ‘tramps’, who epitomise lonely wandering, social rejection and poverty.

There is a noticeable shift in tone in The Flowers as Myop becomes exposed to the world outside her home. The initial tone of the short story is carefree and child-like. Although the point of view of the story is third person omniscient, it is still evident that the readers are viewing the story through the perspective of a child. The young protagonist skips “lightly from hen house to pigpen to smokehouse” (Walker) showing that she is happy, excited even, to enjoy the nature that surrounds her. As Myop explores, it becomes evident that her family’s financial situation is less than ideal. Wandering towards the woods, she leaves behind the “rusty boards of her family’s sharecropper cabin” (185). Despite learning very little about the setting of this story, the reader can already picture the scene as well as the time period. Very little is written about the setting outside of the family home and the surrounding woods. This supports the childlike tone of the beginning of the

For Myop her world includes only enjoyment and simplicities, “nothing existed for her but her song, the stick in her dark brown hand and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment” (Walker), even her families poverty is irrelevant to her as her family lives in a sharecropper cabin on another’s land while she just continues to explore the area further. The rising action approaches the climax when Walker foreshadows the dark peak of the story, “the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant . . . the air was damp, the silence close and deep” (Walker), changing the tone to a morbid and cryptic

Everyday on my short hike home from school, I strolled by her house and inhaled the freshness and beauty of her home. If you looked at her house, you would detect a beautiful array of azaleas, bushes, trees, and other beautiful flowers. More of her property consisted of flowers than a house. The small cottage she lived in hat a tin roof. Every morning, I would see Miss Maudie, wearing her sunhat and dress, water flowers in her front yard. Everyone in the town knew that Maudie Atkinson possessed her garden most off all. I remember when her house burned down, and she didn’t appear to be upset at all. She rambled continuously about how much she could grow her garden. She possessed what I would consider an outstanding quality, the ability to see the good in anything.

Walker tells Myop’s story in a third person omniscient point of view, but limits greatly the extent to which she discloses Myop’s inner feelings. Only once does Walker refer to Myop as “unafraid” (Walker 76), giving us some insight into her thoughts. However, most of the story is told from a rather detached point of view, mostly noting Myop’s actions and the setting around her. Myop’s thoughts, then, must be gleaned from the events of the story. One sees in how Myop responds to the corpse – casually plucking a flower from beside his head – that while the corpse has stripped her of her innocence, she has become more mature through her experience. Myop understands and accepts

The forest, in which a majority of the short narrative takes place, acts as both the setting and a major symbol in the story. In the context of this analysis the forest can be taken to represent life. Myop, who is still young and innocent at the beginning, is extremely familiar with sections of the forest. There are however sections of thew forest which frighten her that she is not familiar with. However because she is familiar enough with parts of it she continues to explore deeper. Unlike previously mentioned trips. She is not only on her own but she strays away from the known part of the woods. Myop is literally taking her first real steps into adulthood.

In the short story “The Flowers,” Alice Walker uses key details to portray Myop as an archetype of carefree childhood innocence. The name Myop, derived from the condition Myopia, means to be nearsighted, or unable to foresee. In the first paragraph of the story Walker introduces the idyllic setting and character, describing that Myop felt “light and good in the warm sun… each day a golden surprise” (Paragraph 1). Myop begins to set out on an archetypal journey, taking her own path, ‘skipping lightly, feeling as though nothing exists but her own song” (Paragraph 2). This symbolizes Myop’s naive world where no problems exist. However, Myop did keep an eye out for one thing: snakes, an archetype of evil.

“The Flowers” by Alice Walker. In this book, Ms.Walker describes how the world many seem innocent to a child, at first, then all the sudden it can take a turn and show its darker side. In this essay I will be explain how Ms.Walker used mood and the setting to show how the world to a child can be innocent and dark. In the story Ms.Walker goes into a child’s mind to show mood and the setting.

Let’s take a journey through the yard with Myop from “ the flower”, as she explores the adventurous wilds of her backyard in the warm sun. The air filled with the smell of harvesting corn and cotton, peanuts and squash (walker 1). Walking the distance of the fence to the spring turning her back on the rusty boards of her family’s sharecropper cabin (walker 1), were she wondered further then ever before, therefore, ending up in the little cove. The air was damp, the silence close and deep. Whereas, Fujio from “ the grasshopper and the bell cricket” explored the grounds behind the

The author uses optimistic diction to associate with Myop and more ominous diction to associate with the corpse. When describing Myop, the author applies phrases such as, “golden surprise that caused excited little tremors to run up her jaws,” “felt light and good in the warm sun,” and “the days had never been as beautiful as these;” whereas, the author applies phrases such as, “broken ridge between brow and nose,” “clothes had rotted away,” “rotted remains”, and “[f]rayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled--barely there,” to describe the skeletal remains. All of these diction play a role in the tone linked to each character, as well as imagery. Moreover, by employing elaborate word choice, Walker constructs tone shifts and foreshadows that increases the suspense within the poem. As Myop prepares to head home, “the strangeness of the land made in not as pleasant as her usual haunts...The air was damp, the silence close and deep.” The author’s complex diction changes the tone from light and happy to bleak and gloomy, which foreshadows Myop’s encounter with the carcass. However, Walker illustrates that Myop is a dauntless young girl. Myop, unalarmed by the remains before her, “gazed around the spot with interest.” By selecting words such as “interest” and “unafraid” to characterize Myop’s reaction, the author demonstrates Myop’s bravery, for her reaction contrasts to a typical young girl’s reaction to a

Ten (10) year old Myop was oblivious to the world surrounding her tiny sharecropper cabin in which her and her mother lived. As she began to grow and mature she “made her own path”

In Alice Walker’s essay “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1974),” the is basically about Alice’s classic and groundbreaking discussion of the Black women artist’s struggle for freedom of self-exploration and to see their expertise recognized for its value in the outside world. Alice starts her essay with her tone being explanatory, she introduces her topic in a unique way. She then becomes accusatory throughout her essay, making sure the reader pays attention to the legacy of Black women. Later, in her essay, she then turns her writing very personal as she provides Memoirs of her own life and others as supporting evidence to prove her claims.