Loss Of Innocence In Marigolds By Eugenia W. Collier

Almost everyone has had a tantrum before, so there should be no surprise when it occurs in novels and short stories. Notable characters such as Lizabeth from the short story, “Marigolds”, by Eugenia Collier and Jem in To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee, impulsively burst with rage, unable to control their emotions because after all, they are just children. The fourteen-year-old African-American girl named Lizabeth along with her family struggle financially in an impoverished town during the Great Depression Era. Despite this, Lizabeth and her little brother enjoy childish acts especially annoying Miss Lottie, an elderly neighbor who cultivates Marigolds in her yard. Later in the novel, Lizabeth lets loose her emotions from her impoverishment and her parent’s financial problems out on these flowers by trampling on them. On the contrary, the elderly neighbor, Mrs. Dubose, in To Kill a Mockingbird is the one pestering Jem, Atticus Finch’s thirteen-year-old son, and not the other way around. The fact that Atticus defended a black man accused of rape displeases her; thus, Mrs. Dubose verbally attacks Jem by comparing his father to African-Americans.This is considered an insult during the Great Depression, the time period of the novel, as black people are viewed as lowly human beings. As a result, Jem takes personal offense to this and strikes back at Mrs. Dubose by ruining her camellias. Even though the physical destructions of the flowers are similar, Lizabeth and Jem’s reason behind it, the consequences and the process of maturation are different.

In the short story “Marigolds”, the author, Eugenia Collier, uses several key events throughout the short story to represent the unseen cage that the main character, Lizabeth, is trapped in, and ultimately breaks. The story is set in a shanty town, likely taking place during the Great Depression. Throughout the story, Lizabeth goes through a difficult stage in life, a stage in which she is in conflict about whether she wants to be a carefree, innocent child, or an educated, compassionate adult. The climax of the story, when Lizabeth tears and rips up Miss Lottie’s marigolds, is such an emotional moment for Lizabeth that she finally completes her transition to adulthood, understands her endless cycle of poverty, and breaks the final bar of the cage.

At a young age, children do not understand the importance of having compassion as for they hold innocence within themselves. Growing up and maturing into an adult, children begin to progressively lose their innocence as they become more of a compassionate person because one can not have both innocence and compassion simultaneously. In fact, a coming of age short story called “Marigolds” written by Eugenia Collier, tells about a young girl named Lizabeth who grows up to become a compassionate person. For the most part, Lizabeth tells her childhood experience in a flashback on how she mostly remembers Miss Lottie’s marigolds. Ultimately, Lizabeth decides to destroy Miss Lottie’s marigolds out of anger because she hears about her parent's economic struggles. Shortly after Lizabeth realizes what she had done, she realizes the meaning of why Miss Lottie plants the marigolds. Throughout the short story, “Marigolds,” the characterization of Lizabeth helps develop the author’s argument that one can not have both compassion and innocence. The three events that show this is, when Lizabeth hesitates before throwing the rocks at the marigolds, hearing the sounds of her father’s sorrowful cries, and eliminating Miss Lottie’s marigolds.

One interpretation of the marigold's meaning is passion in the middle of forlorn town. The Narrator describes her memory of the town as dusty and grey, the grumpy old woman seemingly had one joy, the one burst of color in her dull life, tending to her garden. Once the girl ruin this, the old woman seems done, for there was no more reason to care. Her passion for creating beauty in the somber world died. This adds to the theme of growing by showing how, with age and the experiences, people change. The marigolds could also be seen as Lizabeth's innocence, once flourishing and now destroyed. In the story after hearing her parents argue about money she recognizes life isn't how she thought. Shortly after, she sneaks out to destroy the marigolds. Once caught, she realizes the severity of her actions, she is no longer naïve. The theme is assisted by this because it shows the process of her transitioning from a child to a young

In the short story “The Chrysanthemum” by John Steinbeck, a woman named Elise Allen loved planting, her favorite were Chrysanthemums. She was known for planting these because her flowers turned out unbelievable. “Some of those yellow Chrysanthemums you had this year were ten inches across. I wish you’d work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big.”(282) says Elise’s husband, Henry Allen. Before this, Henry was talking to two men about selling steers. After they leave he tells Elise and then offers to take her out to dinner is two hours after he bring in the steers. During this time, a man who appears to be lost comes up Elise’s drive way while she is in her garden. This man asks for directions to the highway then offers to sharpen her scissors and fix any pots or pans she has and insists he is the best. After she refuses his offer, the man compliments her Chrysanthemums and explains to her that he must have one for a woman he always does business with. Elise was ecstatic because her flowers mean so much to her. She gives the man flower roots and explains how to care for them, then she gives him a few pots and pans to fix then sends him on his way back to the highway. Later, when Elise and Henry are on their way out of town,

Innocence is a characteristic that humans possess from birth. It is a quality of being free from guilt, sin, or moral wrong. When humans begin to mature, their innocence can evolve into one that benefits them as they start to gain knowledge or have experience; alternatively, it can also lead to a disadvantage, as a result of humans tending to misuse what they achieve through their life. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding displays the central theme of innocence, as a quality that decreases in the boys over time as a result of them losing their understanding of society, consequently leading them to act like savages. The loss of innocence is viewed through the foreshadowing of Piggy and Simon’s death which leads to the boys’ personalities becoming savage, the irony in how they communicate or what they do drifts them towards savagery, along with symbolism that relates to hunting which ultimately brings fear among the boys.

"There's not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. The grass don't grow no more, you can't raise a carrot in the backyard. They should have a law against apartment houses...More and more I think about those days, Linda. This time of year it was lilac and wisteria. And then the peonies would come out, and the daffodils. What a fragrance in this room!" ( Miller, 737 )

Could any well-being flourish from obliterating an old lady’s flowers? Initially, this seems to be an arbitrary question, but contemplate the explanation. Jem and Scout Finch were children, striving to dodge an elderly woman’s antagonism. These characters in the book To Kill a Mockingbird described that, “It was impossible to go to town without passing [Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose’s] house unless we wished to walk a mile out of the way... Jim and I hated her. We had long ago given up the idea of walking past her house on the opposite side of the street, that only made her raise her voice and let the whole neighborhood it…”

Furthermore, to expound on a interesting literary piece. A lot of the story is about the preparations and the consequences of the garden party, it was organized by the daughters of the privileged Sheridan family. As dawn breaks, Laura goes into the Sheridan's exquisite garden to inspect the proposed site for the marquee. Her encounter with three workers hired to raise the tent is awkward and confused, as she finds herself torn between being a snob and her developing sense of morality. This story is perceived as the difference between life and death, and can sometimes be portrayed in objects. When Laura caught a glimpse of herself in her mirror after asking her mom about the party¸ she starts to admire herself in the black hat she was wearing and the thought of the laborer faded farther and farther into the back of her mind. Laura’s family seems to be unappreciative of

“In all our lives, there is a fall from innocence. A time after which, we are never the same.” This quote talks about there is a time in our lives when we realize the real horrors of the world around us. After that, we can never be the same person we were before. Two books written about losing innocence are “Flowers” and The Giver.

The theme in the short story, “The Chrysanthemum” by John Steinbeck is about the perception of nature and beauty and how each of them influences each other. The story is about a woman who spends a lot of time taking special care in maintaining her chrysanthemums to replace a void in her life. Elisa carefully watches her chrysanthemums making them stronger, and surrounding them with a wire fence to keep them safe. These are the same gestures a mother would do for her children like a bear over her cubs and her passion for gardening is how nature and beauty intertwine.

Margot wasn’t like any of these kids. She is smarter than the rest of the children and never lost hope that the sun would come out. The children didn’t treat her the same and certainly didn’t see her as a friend. “He gave her a shove. But she did not move; rather she let herself be moved only by him and nothing else. They edged away from her, they would not look at her” (2). This is a prime example of the children picking on Margot when all she is trying to do is waiting for the sun to come out. The children were neglecting her because they tried to hide their jealousy by picking on her and making her feel unwanted when really they all have the same dream. “Now she stood, separated, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass” (2). Once again the author, shows Margot was alone and was separated from the group. The sun symbolizes happiness and peace that hopefully the children and Margot get to

One of the subplots of the film follows the blossoming romance of P.K Dubey and Alice, the Verma family maid. All it really took was one look at each other in ‘The Marigold gate’ for them to develop feelings and to notice that what they had was special. Marigolds are used as a symbolic prop in the film and are an important symbol in the relationship between Alice and Dubey. When they first meet, Alice puts a marigold behind her ear and Dubey eats on that lands in his pocket. When Dubey proposes to Alice he has a heart of marigolds and offers it to her. When they get married, they have a small ceremony and are protected from the rain by

She must not have always been so bitter, as it shows in the beginning of the story with her son, John, when he is picking the chrysanthemums and she tells him to stop because it looks ugly to her but when he does she picks her own flowers to keep, although hesitantly, as if unsure. Her hesitance to pick up the flowers shows that maybe she is unsure or uncomfortable with the feelings that she has, or may have had, with her husband. The gesture suggests that at one point Elizabeth had loved her husband instead of the feelings of anger that she feels today. When she is talking to her daughter, Annie, about the significance of the chrysanthemums, Elizabeth seems as if she has no love at all for the flowers, only disgust, as she feels now with her husband. In the beginning of the marriage, the chrysanthemums represented the happiness and love that they felt for each other when they were married and had their first child but as time passed and their distance grew the chrysanthemums only showed the pain of a loveless marriage that has left Elizabeth bitter. This meaning of the flowers only works

A few blocks from the compound I lived in, was a flower shop. One day as I passed by the shop, something in the window caught my attention. Hidden within the forest of plants, resided a small, neglected plant. However, its beauty exceeded the elegance of its siblings. The green of the leaves matched Alice's eyes, and the single blue flower matched my own. Of course, the decision to purchase this plant was simple, it needed freedom from its confinements just like I did, to bask in the sunlight and indulge in the delicious air.