In paragraph 9 she thinks back to when her children caught fireflies in a jar with her, but one day she forgot about them, “ I suppose they flew away one night as I lingered over mending, or soiled tableware, or a child’s lessons.” While she was busy with the housework the fireflies had already left. She was once like her children, mourning for the passing of the fireflies, but as time went by she had other things on her mind; thoughts of future endeavors like mending, teaching her children, or washing dishes dominated her mind, as she stopped saying goodbye to her old
Theme, theme, theme! What is a theme? A theme is a written message or a taught lesson about a story or person. The book “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, is about an elderly lady, Miss Lottie and some children. They lived in a dry, unjoyful world.
In the short story “Marigolds”, by Eugenia Collier the main character, Lizabeth, tells about her life as a 14 year old girl living through the Great Depression. Lizabeth lived in a poor neighborhood and struggled to find ways to fill her time. In the story the things Lizabeth did revolved around an elder lady, Miss Lottie and her marigolds. Lizabeth would throw pebbles at Miss Lottie’s marigolds with her brother because she felt as the marigolds were too beautiful to belong. The short story explains how Lizabeth tried to find herself and the troubles she went through as a teenager.
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.
Maturity begins to grow when you can sense your concern for others outweighing your concern for yourself -John Macnaughton. B. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and short story Marigolds by Eugenia Collier both show how their characters attain wisdom and compassion but also lose their innocence but through different ways. C. B. In To Kill a Mockingbird and Marigolds the older children, Jem and Lizabeth experience a realization when they destroy their neighbor's flowers. For Jem and Lizabeth it was an outburst of a childish rage.
In the short story, Marigolds by Eugenia Collier explores the effects of poverty to convey the theme of powerlessness. The theme is exhibited through setting, her parents, and Miss. Lottie's marigolds. The main character, Lizabeth, is a fourteen-year-old girl, playing with her brother and their friends, just being kids. Lizabeth doesn’t feel powerless as a child, it is only when she looks back on the situation does she realize what growing up in poverty has done to her.
“Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros and “The Flowers” by Alice Walker are both short stories with underlying themes related to the concept of coming of age, or “growing up”. To be more specific, the idea of loss in the context of childhood innocence is particularly prevalent in these stories. The situation in which this loss occurs is drastically different within the two stories. In “Eleven”, the protagonist, Rachel, is forced to wear a sweater that is believed to be hers by her teacher and classmates.
Change is a good thing, and everyone does it. It could be the way you dress, the way you act, or the things you do. In this case, it was the things and ways the characters acted. And, in both short stories their change was from a child to an adult, from immature to mature, and during this change, each protagonist lost their innocence. In “Marigolds” and “The Flowers”, loss of an innocence can be caused by when Myop stepped on the African American man, when Lizabeth destroyed the Marigolds, and the way Lizabeth’s opinion of Miss. Lottie changed.
In the short story, “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, a young girl named Lizabeth who lived in a poor community of poverty was in great confusion and anger. Therefore, she took her confusion and anger out on the only beauty in that town, Miss. Lottie’s beautiful marigolds. The marigolds she destroyed symbolised hope for the community and she had lost that hope and brought it on the flowers.
Lizabeth’s rite of passage begins when she and the other neighbor kids go to Miss Lottie’s house and throw rocks at her marigolds. Afterward, Lizabeth is ashamed of what she had done, “The woman in [Lizabeth] flinched at the thought of the malicious attack the [she] had led” (Collier 113). Lizabeth realizes that what she did was wrong. The climax of the story is also a rite of passage for Lizabeth. After Lizabeth destroyed Miss Lottie’s marigolds, she was embarrassed and felt guilty.
When I woke her, she denied it. ‘I was not crying. I most certainly was not. In the morning, Phoebe refused to get up. Her father rushed into the room with two ties slung around his neck and his shoes in his hand.
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
In Marigolds, by Eugenia W. Collier, Lizabeth had a loss of innocence experience that contributes to her coming of age. For example, Lizabeth took out the anger that built up inside of her on Miss Lottie’s marigolds,
Jacob Herrera Ms. Ahn English 1 Honors period 1 30/1/2023 Title of Your Essay Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another.” – Alfred Adler. This illustrated well In the story “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, tells the story of Lizabeth, a 14 year old girl who attacks an old lady named Miss Lottie with a group of kids which causes an inner conflict which leads to her gaining empathy for Miss Lottie. To make us feel empathy, Eugenia Collier uses many forms of figurative language like similes, metaphors and most importantly, many symbols that give the story much more meaning. Miss Lottie is a great example of this.
. . are arrogant” and “beg for pity out of hopelessness. ”The introduction of “you” in the fourth paragraph makes her presence clear; she was the child, she remembers that “you could feel the world turning,” she looks back at the contrast of young and old. But in the next phase of her going forth her safe dreams break, they turn to “places of blood and slaughter”, innocence has gone “there was no place for witness, no room for it. Even the dead lacked lilies.
