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Summary Of Marigolds By Eugenia Collier

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In the short story “Marigolds” Eugenia Collier gives us an idea of what it is like growing up in the Great Depression. The Great Depression began in 1929 when the stock market crashed causing many people to lose their jobs and to struggle financially. Lizabeth is the main character and narrator, she is a fourteen year old girl whose family lives in a rundown house in a poor community, located in Maryland. Lizabeth has no happy memories of her hometown because of the fact that she grew up in the Great Depression. Lizabeth is at the stage in her life when she is growing up to be a woman, throughout the story we can clearly see that.
One summer day, Lizabeth and Joey (Lizabeth’s little brother) were very bored and wanted to do something …show more content…

After hearing enough Lizabeth became so overwhelmed she went to Miss. Lottie’s house and did something she would never forget. She ripped out all of Miss. Lottie’s marigolds from the root until Miss. Lottie came outside. She then realized that what she had done could not be undone, she also realized why Miss. Lottie cared so much about the marigolds, “The witch was no longer a witch but only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility. She had been born in squalor and lived in it all her life. Now the end of that life she had nothing except a falling down hut, a wrecked body, and John Burke, the mindless son of her passion.” I was quite saddened with this quote because of the fact that she had nothing else to give her that happiness besides the flowers. Not even her son gave her happiness, which made me even more sad to read this …show more content…

”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,” this passage explained it all. To me this meant that the marigolds upset them because of their beauty, they hated the fact that the flowers were more beautiful than the world they lived in. Even though I understood why they disliked the flowers, I don’t agree with what they did, it was horrible and left me in

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