Marigolds and Sowing Cahnge Essay Example

form of walking while working on the garden.

Also, the garden was culturally important because it promotes African heritage, due to the large African American community in the neighborhood. For example, the garden was built in the shape of the African continent and it has a shelter that represents the tribal huts in Africa. The garden is valuable to the community of North Lawndale. In the story of “Marigolds”, Eugenia Collier demonstrates how gardens can help people emotionally in their lives. Gardens symbolize growth, beauty, and hope. In the story, we see how Ms. Lottie preserves and take care of her marigolds.

Ms Lottie’s garden symbolizes the hope she has left. The narrator expressed “whatever verve that was left in her, whatever was of love and beauty and joy that had not been squeezed out by life, had been there in the marigolds she had so tenderly cared for”. The narrator shows her disgust of the marigolds which represents the hope of a good life and with anger destroys Ms Lottie’s garden. Thus, destroying the little hope Ms. Lottie had left. At that moment, Elizabeth lost her innocence and became a woman, gaining compassion.

Elizabeth recalled “... as I look back upon it, I know that that moment it marked the end of my innocence. …In that humiliating moment I looked beyond myself and into the depths of another person. This was the beginning of compassion, and one cannot have both compassion and innocence”. Now being fully able to understand the aged woman she finally understood that the marigolds were much more than a patch of flowers. It was hope that there

was still beauty in their poor town and that one can still achieve ones dreams despite society’s limitations.

The two stories conveyed that gardens are beneficial to society in the literal and symbolical sense. In “Sowing Change” we saw how the community came together and grew physically and morally through the creation of the beautiful garden. The marigolds in Eugenia Collier’s story represented hope for Ms Lottie and the narrator. It also, helped the narrator discover her path into womanhood. The two literary passages are both connected showing us how gardens are important and can be influential in our lives.