The setting of the short story Marigolds by Eugenia Collier is crucial to the story’s conflict, as Lizabeth’s family goes through rough times during the Great Depression. She is only fourteen, and does not understand her family’s situation, although she sees how her parents are affected by the depression. In the short story, Lizabeth realizes that she is now a young woman, and no longer has the innocence that she once had when she was a child. The actions of Lizabeth and her friends toward Miss Lottie demonstrate how the setting strongly influences the kids to destroy Miss Lottie’s marigolds. The story takes place during a scorching hot summer, in a rural Maryland shanty town hit hard by the Depression. Each morning, Lizabeth’s parents would go off in search of work and the kids would loaf around the neighborhood. Lizabeth and her brother Joey were “becoming tired of the formlessness of their summer days.” One day, as the kids were moping around, Joey suggested the idea of annoying Miss Lottie, the old lady who was known as a witch among the children. Lizabeth thought it was a great idea, as all the children …show more content…
Miss Lottie is no ordinary old lady. As the children approach Miss Lottie’s house, they get a good look at it. Lizabeth describes the elderly woman’s house as “the most ramshackle of all our ramshackle homes,” and “a gray rotting thing.” Her son, John Burke sat on a rocking chair in the front of the house. His presence alone gave the house a decaying vibe, and intimidated Lizabeth and her friends. Miss Lottie seemed to stay in her yard at all times, to protect her prized possession that was later destroyed; her beloved garden. The night of the incident, Lizabeth returned to the old lady’s home filled with guilt, only to see Miss Lottie standing in her yard over her ruined marigolds. This time she did not seem like an angry witch, but an old lady that had lost the last important thing to