The short story Marigolds by Eugenia Collier illustrates the story of a teenager slowly maturing into an adult. In the story, Lizebeth slowly learns more about adulthood and matures into an adult near the end of the story. By the end of the short story, Lizebeth has learned everything and becomes an adult. In the beginning, Lizbeth is behaving like a child, pranking Miss Lottie and destroying her flowers. This shows us how Lizebeth acted at the beginning. The text states that “I leaped furiously into the mounds of marigolds and pulled madly, trampling and pulling and destroying her perfect yellow blooms” (Collier 333). In other words, Lizebeth is still acting like a child, not thinking about what her actions can do. It does not come to her to think about what she did to the flowers and how it impacted Miss Lottie. These details matter because it shows the reader how Lizebeth acted. …show more content…
She overhears her parents talking about the hardships that they have to deal with. According to the author, the text states, “The world had lost its boundary lines. My mother, who was small and soft, was now the strength of the family; my father, who was the rock on which the family had been built, was sobbing like the tiniest child. Everything was suddenly out of tune, like a broken accordion. Where did I fit into this crazy picture? I do not now remember my thoughts, only a feeling of great bewilderment and fear” (Collier lines 287”. This means that Lizabeth is confused about everything that's happening around her. When her father cries, she is shocked about it since he is a strong-looking man, and it causes her to think about why everything is changing around her. This quote is important since it explains how, in her mind, she doesn’t fit into what is
Lizabeth’s first time seeing her dad cry was the due to a fight between him and her mother. She was nearly 15 and woke up from her mother speaking. The fight was about the poverty Lisabeth and her family was in. Innocence started fading away because her dad was no longer the strong man she always seen him as. Her mother became the one that was working to support the family because her dad had lost his job.
In the poem “On turning Ten '' by Billy Collins and in the short story “ Marigolds” written by Eugenia W. Collier, both authors talk about how life has changed and the end of their childhood based on situations of their past life. In the poem and the short story, both authors explore the impact of losing innocence by describing their memory and discovering the truth. Both authors show how emotional it was to face the truth and reality based on his and her memories. In “Marigolds”, she starts losing her innocence when she “Never heard a man cry before” (Collier 42) and how she discovered Miss Lottie wasn’t frustrated with the situation at the end but was upset. In “On Turning Ten” he realizes “I skin my knees.
All she wants to do when they run is worry about her breathing and running form. If anyone wants to do anything to Raymond “they have to come by her” (Bambara Line 11). Lizabeth’s family is in need of money and her dad can’t find a job to get money. When Lizabeth was trying to fall asleep she heard her dad crying. While he was crying Lizabeth felt his “harsh, painful, despairing sobs” (Collier Par. 43).
And I was hers. And that belonging-to-each-other thing will never happen for me again” shows that her mom was her strongest supporter. Conversely, dad was not that reliable. It obvious that living without mom is vast and hazy. Dad only take responsibility of the family after Mom got sick.
Since the story is told from the perspective of Lizabeth, she narrates the conflict and blames Miss Lottie and her flowers. She describes the inexplicable hatred she feels towards the flowers and Miss Lottie’s tenderness towards them. Lizabeth narrates, “For some perverse reason, we children hated those marigolds. They interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place; they were too beautiful; they said too much that we could not understand; they did not make sense. There was something in the vigor with which the old woman destroyed the weeds that intimidated us”.
Finally, the setting of Miss Lottie's garden, with its beautiful marigolds, represents a contrast to the poverty and ugliness of Lizbeth's surroundings. "For some perverse reason, we children hated those marigolds. They interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place; they were too beautiful; they said too much that we could not understand; they did not make sense. Perhaps we had some dim notion of what we were and how little chance we had of being anything else. Otherwise, why would we have been so preoccupied with destruction?"
Across centuries, characters have been an important part in carrying a plot. Animals, people and even thought-up species can be the main focus of the story, allowing the plot to move forward. Authors use character actions and thoughts as ways to illustrate the traits that each of them portray. These traits are important, as they assist the progression of the story. Throughout the plot of Marigolds by Eugenia Collier, Lizabeth’s growth is tracked through the traits she demonstrates.
Her inner self craves for freedom to drive past and achieve something. She envisions her song as a luxurious Cadillac, where she now wants a materialistic world. She is in her imaginary world until the heat of the urn in her hand bring back her to reality, where she starts comparing to her real life, hallow and vapid. She attempts to find comfort in her room, as she says “coffee cruises my mind visiting the most remote way stations, I think of my room as a calm arrival each book and lamp in its place.” She starts to reflect her possessions and the security they give her and what they represent in her life.
When she was young, she could not process the way her father raised and treated her, so she believed everything he said. When she is able to understand, her tone changes and becomes clinical and critical remembering the way he constantly let her
The author uses the emotions of both the narrator and the grandmother to show their different opinions on how they see their identities. “The awful grandmother knits the names of the people who have died and of the people who are still alive into one long prayer fringed with the grandchildren born in that barbaric country with its
The narrator has complex thoughts; she doesn´t know what to think anymore; she knows what she did was wrong, but she doesn´t want to admit it. In another line, she says this in lines 291-293. Everything went out of tune like an accordion that had broken. What role did I play in this bizarre picture? I have no
In the story, “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, Collier uses the actions and words of young Lizabeth to highlight the innocence of childhood before and the revelation after destroying Mrs. Lottie’s marigolds. For instance, Lizabeth had thought “Miss Lottie was a witch and [she] made up tales that [she] half believed [her]self about [Miss Lottie’s] exploits”(21). Lizabeth’s youth is filled with hatred for Ms. Lottie with tales of her evil. Miss Lottie’s placement of a witch seems to stick with the group, even after their realization that witches aren’t real, and it still affects their views towards her and what she does with their marigolds. In addition, when confronted by Miss Lottie after destroying the marigolds, Lizabeth “gazed at the immobile
While reading the story, you can tell in the narrators’ tone that she feels rejected and excluded. She is not happy and I’m sure, just like her family, she wonders “why her?” She is rejected and never accepted for who she really is. She is different. She’s not like anyone else
Also this moment is crucial in the story because it alters people’s decisions and changes the whole aspect of the novel where simply the protagonists fall in love and get married after a whole act misconception and misjudgment. This is considered an illuminating incident because of its various impacts. This scene does not only change Elizabeth’s mind but also the readers. It’s an apex in the novel, where everything hits the reader and turns the tables.
Her personal experience is socially and theoretically constructed and emotions play an essential role in the process of identity formation. Her identity is not fixed, which is portrayed by inquisitiveness that her own mother and Aunt thought she was possessed, enhanced and made this story an enriching experience. The family is the first agent of socialization, as the story illustrates, even the most basic of human activities are learned and through socialization people