The Cage Of Poverty In Marigolds By Eugenia Collier

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.

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

Harrington describes the many factors contributed to about 20-25% of the nation facing poverty in America in the 1960s. The loss of mining jobs caused most of the inhabitants of the small towns in the picturesque Appalachian Mountains to lose their livelihood and become poor. The inner city slums in cities like Chicago and New York were (still are) home to many African Americans, minorities, and poor whites that left their hometowns seeking jobs. These areas were high crime prone areas with rodent infested dilapidated buildings, poor sanitary conditions, inferior quality schools, and dismal healthcare (poor people got sick more often compared to middle class). The poor were thought of as “underclass” by the Middle Class America

Two characters, Elisa Allen and Mary Teller, struggle with the idea of being accepted into the society of the 1930s. Women’s rights were not fully accepted in the 1930s, and these two characters were set in the common day view of men and women. In the 1930s, “[Society has] assigned to white women such roles as housewife, secretary, PTA chairman, and schoolteacher. Black women can now be schoolteachers, too, but they are most prominently assigned to such domestic roles as maid, cook, waitress, and babysitter” (Chisholm 123). These assigned roles have impacted women around the world, including the two characters in these short stories - “The Chrysanthemums” and “The White Quail”. Not being activists in women’s rights, these women conformed to society and lived their lives as any typical housewife in the 1930s. Their passions and choices during this time affected their way of living and relationships. The two stories reflect similarities of the women’s love for gardening and lonely marriages, but also reflect their different viewpoints on the world they live in.

Since the story uses a certain object, the Jacket, as the meaning of several issues, it primarily focuses on the narrator's poverty-stricken family. First of all, an example of the poverty is demonstrated when the narrator complains that the jacket "was so ugly and big that I knew I'd have to wear it a long time"(paragraph 3). It is clear that his lack of money was a problem in which he

To give some context to the story, what is currently happening is the Dad and mom have no real stable way of living income wise which has left them with dirty clothes, no food, and depression. How this theme was introduced here was on page 69 in this quote: “...her face was swollen red ‘It’s not my fault if you’re hungry’ she shouted. ‘Do you think I like living like this? Do you?’”. This has shown how the family is paying for the choices that the parents have made and this continues on in the rest of the story with the family still struggling to live free without any from of constraint. The event results in a vicious cycle of depression as demonstrated in Welch when they had to move because of low income and the kids had to go through neglect or abuse from the mother of Rex and when they moved into a broken down house with no heating to try and fend for themselves for winter. This was due to the parents refusal of jobs and wanting easy money, and judging by the context where the mom’s eyes are “swollen and red” she is crying.

Everyone knows that poverty can lead to feelings of shame and humiliation, but what many people don’t realize is that sometimes overwhelming feelings of shame and humiliation lead to poverty. In her article “In the Search of Identity in Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street,” Maria de Valdes goes as far as to refer to shame and poverty as a “syndrome” because she believes they’re so closely associated. “It is a closed circle,” Valdes asserts. “You are poor because you are an outsider without education; you try to get an education, but you can’t take the contrastive evidence of poverty and ‘it keeps you down.’” In other words, poverty and shame are an endless cycle because a person will be ashamed to be impoverished, but won’t be able to move up because shame will always hold them back. This can be seen in Esperanza’s mother, who didn’t finish school because she was too ashamed that she didn’t have nice clothes like the other girls. “Shame is a bad thing, you know,” she warns Esperanza. “It keeps you down” (91). Shame kept her down by preventing her from finishing school, and in turn her lack of education kept her from pursuing her dreams. Instead, she settled into the housewife life, which she still regrets: “I could’ve been somebody, you know” (91). She says it sadly, like she’s mourning the loss of what

Imagine: A young boy scavenges for food to provide for his impoverished family which was composed of his ill mother and starving siblings or a homeless, single mom desperatley seeking for shelter. These synopses from "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt and "The Street" by Ann Petry share a common theme: perseverance through hardships. In "Angela's Ashes," a memoir by Frank McCourt, he stells about the harships he endured through his childhood, such as, struggling to assist his family in the midst of poverty by stealing food to provide for them. Futhermore, in "The Street," a novel by Ann Petry, tells the story of young Lutie Johnson, a homeless single mom who is seeking shelter for herself and her children. In these two excerpts, the authors use the characters, settings, and events to develop the theme, which I've identified as perseverance through hardships.

During the Great Depression, the Western United States was a bleak and dreary place. Much of the working population at the time were migrant workers, who worked as farmhands for wealthier farm owners. These migrant workers often suffered from terrible working conditions, and horrendously low wages. As George and Lennie drift from job to job in search of liveable conditions and steady pay, they experience the cruel reality that moving up in society is near impossible. Even when George manages to find stable occupations for he and Lennie, Lennie seems to inevitably cause a disturbance, forcing them to abscond immediately. With the strength of an ox, but the mind of a child, Lennie is an oblivious destroyer, who gets little sympathy from

Poverty is a prevailing aspect in the novel because it shows the hardships of the characters and attracts the readers. It also gives more harsh detail into what life was like for migrant farm workers. George and Lennie, the two main characters in the novel, are very impoverished and struggle wi getting o bas necessities s such as food, water, and clothing. Instead of

John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, takes place during the Great Depression in the 1930’s, in the Salinas Valley, California. It establishes the prospect of the American Dream, discrimination,loneliness, and disenfranchisement through its characters. George and Lennie provided the value of the American Dream, to which the leading female role, Curley’s wife, represents how women are exempt from the American Dream, and appeared as less than equal to men. She developed a form of loneliness throughout the course of the novel. The novella seeks to demonstrate the way of which life was like for the characters of all different statuses and backgrounds. Through Curley’s wife’s character, we are able to see how life was like for a women during

During the Great Depression, migrant farmers sought out work to stay alive. When they finally found a job to sustain them, workers were mistreated, starved, paid poor wages, and, worst of all, robbed of necessary human companionship. John Steinbeck captures the hopelessness of Depression-era farm life in his novella Of Mice and Men. Throughout the novella, most characters have a disability crippling them and pushing them away from other workers on the farm. Their disabilities are a physical embodiment of their isolation. Steinbeck uses his disabled characters to illustrate the depth of their loneliness, as well as to exemplify different types of loneliness.

The setting is so important to the novel because it sets the role and background of the characters. View of the Depression then come from a man just off of parole or a grandfather who is getting old and to weak to be the backbone of the family. The Depression that has hit nailed the common man and jobs are scarce. This is the binding factor between everyone in the novel - that most people are ‘down in the dumps.’

In the beginning, the author explains how this young girl, Lizabeth, lived in the culturally deprived neighborhood during the depression.  Lizabeth is at the age where she is just beginning to become a young woman and is

Walker Evan’s depiction of life and the people during the Depression of the 1930s is overwhelmed, depressed, and grim. A example of grim is the house, it looks old and dim with no light. Grim means uninviting so the house is that very much. The floor is wooden just like the walls and there’s cracks everywhere.There is only one bed in the home with only one window to. The clothes on the people are shaggy and falling apart. Another example is overwhelmed, only one person is wearing shoes? So this means that they are the only one working. This may make her overwhelmed by all the pressure of people in the household. For instance, the little boy in front may feel overwhelmed also due to the condition of house and the clothes that he is wearing.