The Flowers Alice Walker Essay Example

when Myop senses something. There was a “keenness” in the air “that made her nose twitch”. The twitchy nose reminds us of dog’s sharp sense of smell, or a rabbit’s nose twitch when it senses danger. So in effect we get the impression that she senses something will happen, we don’t really know if it will be good or bad until we read on.

We are reminded of Myop’s protected innocence when we are told of her excitement of the new harvest. The harvest has the connotations of control and plentiful food, suggesting Myop’s parents censoring what really happens out in the real world to protect her innocence. This is further emphasised by the mention of the colour, which is an expensive metal, so it is normally associated with security and protection, which emphasises how much innocence Myop will lose at the end of the story.

We go back to Myop’s carefree mood again when we are told of her actions. She was making up “the beat of a song on the fence,” this is an action normally associated with young carefree children. We go back to safety and security when we are told Myop “felt light and good in the warm sun”. We are also reminded of the fact that she is a child, and how much she is to lose when we are told “she was ten”. This is a really powerful point because a child finding a murdered body, especially out of hatred, is more powerful and evocative than if it was an adult. A hurt child evokes more sympathy than a hurt adult.

We get an almighty shock

when we find out that the child is black. We realise this when we read that she had a “stick clutched in her dark brown hand” when she is beating out a rhythm on a fence. The fact she is black makes us think what really will happen at the end.

We reach a minor turning point which gives us clues to the major turning point later. The story seems to darken when Myop turns her back on “her family’s sharecropper cabin.” This could be interpreted as Myop turning her back on the safety and security of her parents. She is no longer secure or protected, which acts as a foreshadowing of the turning point later on in the story. The mention of “sharecropper” is also another suggestion that Myop is black, because many sharecroppers were black in America.

The story continues to darken and the colours change as we approach the major turning point; this is done through a change in setting and metaphors with hidden meanings. As Myop leaves her house and the safety of her parents, she approaches a spring which is surrounded by “silver-ferns and wildflowers”. Silver is not as expensive as gold, so it gives the suggestion that Myopis not as safe and protected as she was at home. This is further evoked when we read “wildflowers”, because it is not as controlled as the harvest earlier on in the story. The use of metaphors darkens the story: “the tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin black scale of soil and the water that silently rose and slid away down the stream,” suggests the whites simmering hatred towards blacks,

causing them to kill the for no reason and then sneak away cowardly like nothing ever happened.

We get clues that give suggestions to the approaching turning point. One of the clues is when we are told Myop “made her own path” which is not as safe as she is no longer protected and safe. Myop is also “bouncing this way and that way”, which is more definite than the carefree skipping earlier, which could symbolise her loss of innocence is definitely coming. She is also “vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes”, which goes back to her innocent daydreaming earlier, because she only registers the snakes, but isn’t really trying to watch out for them. Snakes also have the connotations of evil.

Some strange new flowers and colours give clues to the turning point. Myop had picked some “strange blue flowers with velvety ridges.” The colour blue is a cold colour, which is not as pleasant as the gold of the harvest at the start of the story. There is an oxymoron, “velvety ridges”; we associate velvet as to being soft and smooth, whereas with “ridges”, we think of the sharp, ragged lines of mountains. We also have the “sweet suds bush full of the brown fragrant buds”, which represent the sweet, lovely blacks that are attacked and bullied all the time.

Myop is far from home and is somewhere unpleasant which hints at the turning point later. We are told “she was a mile or more from home”, which is unpleasant, as she is far from her place of safety. She finds herself in a “little cove”, which is surrounded

by trees and she senses it is gloomy, which is unpleasant; it is also damp, which adds to the unpleasantness.

It is when she goes back home that she reaches the climatic turning point, stepping into the lynched man’s skull. At first she quickly tries to free herself, with no fear as she doesn’t realise her foot is caught in a man’s skull. This could be where her name comes from – Myopia, a serious eye condition that causes near blindness – this could be a symbol that Myop is blind to the reality of what has just happened. When she does finally see the skull, she gives “a little yelp of surprise” which could refer back to the dog like sense of smell earlier at the start - the time she sensed a “keenness” in the air.

We get a description of the dead man and it seems like the author is doing a forensic investigation. We are told that “he had been a tall man”, which could suggest he had been a strong man, but was defenceless against the whites hatred. This is further emphasised when we are told that “feet to neck covered a long space” and that he had “big bones”. We know he has been lynched because his head had become detached. There is also evidence that he may have been beaten up before he was lynched, because all his teeth were either “cracked or broken”.

Myop is still blind to the reason behind the death of this man. She had “gazed around the spot with interest”, which could, in a way, suggest she does not really

understand what really happened to this man, or what she really is looking at. This could be another reason why she is named after the eye condition – Myopia – because she is blind to racism.

Myop finds a flower - that represents her life - surrounded by a decaying noose. She finds a “wild pink rose” which represents Myop’s carefree life and it is surrounded by a “raised mound, a ring, around the rose’s root”, which could represent the hardships of life and reality closing in on her. The ring had been a noose, which is “now blending benignly into the soil”, but a murder weapon cannot be classified as being benign. There is also another piece on the nearby oak tree and it is “spinning restlessly in the breeze”, which could represent the spirit of the victim is restless and wants revenge, or it could symbolise the whites continuous determination to eradicate blacks.

There are two ways in which Myop’s loss of innocence is represented. The first one is Myop laying her collection of flowers down next to him. When she does this, it seems she does this out of respect for the man, as she begins to realise what happened to him. Myop’s loss of innocence is further emphasised when we are told “and the summer was over”. This shows Myop has lost her innocence and is catapulted into the Autumn of her life, when she is not so carefree and innocent.

Alice Walker has written this short story which has an obvious change in the story. She has built up to the turning point with little clues in

colour changes, flowers, and metaphors with hidden meanings too. The dtory had changed dramatically when Myop stepped into the skull of the black man. I think this story really tells us to watch what we say or do around children as we can harm their innocence, and it also warns us of the hatred of many white people against balcks, or anyone different.