Analysis Of The Flowers, By Alice Walker

Dee does not truly value the heritage, and her interest in the quilts seem to reflect a cultural trend. This cultural trend becomes evident when the mother says, “I had offered Dee a quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told me they were old-fashioned, out of style”(Walker 96). We learned early in the story that Dee acquired a style at a young age, and she allowed the world around her to alter and manipulate that style.

As the story advances however, Dee does get more complex and is demonstrated to be battling with her own particular personality and heritage. Concrete subtle elements are expressed about Dee that lead you to know she is beautiful, smart and certain. Dee is described as thin with a little waste. She is a light cleaned dark individuals with a decent review hair. She is also well educated. Dee is fashion conscience, continually needing more pleasant things that were not affordable to her family. First and foremost of the story, Dee’s mother and sister, Maggie are is getting ready for Dee’s entry for a visit. Here is the place you get the first flash of Dee’s obvious identity. Maggie is portrayed by her mother as being apprehensive until after Dee goes when Dee hasn’t arrived yet. This persuades that maybe Maggie is threatened by Dee and maybe feels inferior compared to Dee. Dee’s mother discuss dreaming a fantasy about being welcomed by Dee with a grasp and tears in her eyes. All things considered Dee’s mother and sister don’t appear to feel just as they truly measures up to what Dee expects or needs them will be Dee’s mother never had much of an education and Dee’s mother raised enough cash to send Dee off to school. Maggie is specified as having poor sight and not being brilliant. Dee the again is smart.

The strongest example of Dee's confusion and of Walker's belief that a family's heritage should be alive and not frozen in time is at the end of the story. Dee finds the two quilts that had been pieced together by many generations of her family, and she wants to keep them. Her mother says, "In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's paisley shirts. And one teeny

Commenting on the way Dee is acting when they sit down to eat, her mother says, "Everything delighted her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we couldn't afford to buy chairs" (411). Dee seems to be so interested in all of the little household items that her family still uses. When she sees the top to the butter churn that her Uncle whittled out of a tree, she wants to keep it and use it a centerpiece for her alcove table. Also, Dee says, "I'll think of something artistic to do with the dasher" (412). These items are a part of life for Maggie and her mother, but to Dee they are merely pieces for decoration.

Nonetheless, she learns to appreciate and love Maggie for who she is, hence giving her the quilts. Dee is self-assured, confident, and is not easily intimated. She has an astounding background in education but, can also be pretentious and condescending towards her mother and sister. She displays this in the end of the story when she tells Mama and Maggie that they don't understand their heritage, and also, when she changes her name from Dee to Wangero Leewanika. Dee firmly expresses to her mother that the name change is a way for her

One of the most inspiring authors in American history is Alice Walker. Walker is the youngest child in a sharecropper family that found her overly ambitious and highly competitive (Walker 609). This gave her a strong fighting attitude, which allowed her to make positive changes in an extremely racist society. Unfortunately, when she was young, Walker was accidentally shot in her right eye with a BB gun while playing “Cowboys and Indians.” This accident caused Walker to lose her self-esteem and her captivating personality. As a result, she secluded herself from the outside world and began to write. During this time-the 1950’s and 1960’s- Alice Walker’s works channeled the hardship and inferiority that she realized as a black person (Whitted).

The way that Mama, the narrator of the story, emphasis on the way the yard look “so clean and wavy” (Waker) let the readers know the attachment that she and Maggie have to their home and that they spend every day of their lives taking care of their house and the thing inside it because they have an important value. As she explained, for her and Maggie the yard is “an extended living room”(Walker) because they spend most of their days in it. Maggie and Mama shared a variety of things, and one of those things is that they accept who they are and that they know about their past and culture. Maggie, like her mother, honors the memory of her ancestors. On the other hand, Dee is virtually Maggie`s opposite, she has moved toward other traditions because she never conformed with what her family provides. She never paid attention to the everyday details, like the chairs her dad made. However, after she spends time away from her home, she suddenly attempts to recover her ancient roots. Nevertheless, at the same time, she refuses to accept her immediate heritage, the heritage that her family offered. The heritage that her mother and sister

(Sarnowski 12) Due to the fact that Dee has obtained an education and has traveled far from the farm, “hesitation was no part of her nature.” (Walker) On the other hand, Maggie and Mrs. Johnson have lived on the farm and are both hesitant to converse with strangers. As a result, Mrs. Johnson pays close attention to every fine detail in the yard as it is considered an extended component of the

Mama continues to praise the yard for its comfort, citing it for its “breezes that never come inside the house” (Walker 2). Mama and Maggie dedicate a lot of time and effort into their yard, as it is the one place where they can exercise the little control they have over their environment. They are prideful in the yard, being apparent in their preference for it over the house. Despite not even having any grass, Mama claims that “A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know” (Walker 1).

She feels a sort of freedom outside whereas there is tension built up inside the house, like when there was the debate over the quilts. The yard gives Mama time to get out of the house and also reassures her with safety, possibly from fear from the house fire they experienced years earlier. Mama enjoyed keeping the yard raked nicely and put effort into detailing the dirt before Dee arrives at her home, showing her passion in the yard. “Mama and Maggie sit in their neat yard, its dirt surface carefully raked, enjoying the shade and their snuff together until it was time to go in the house and go to bed”

She was named after her aunt Dicie. Her care of carrying down the family name is less than apparent when she throws the name Dee to the wind and renames herself ‘Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo.’ Dee wants to learn and be knowledgeable. Her attitude can come off as arrogant and a know-it-all. Confidence emanates from her. Tangible things not being used for their full purpose is how she hangs onto her heritage. Examples of this can be seen in her wanting to abuse house appliances for decorations instead of the intended purpose and taking pictures of Mama, Maggie, a cow, and the house. Holding onto the past is not for her, she mainly looks towards the future. She hated the house they lived in so much she watched, almost gleefully, as it burned down. In the story it is stated, “And Dee. I see her standing off under the sweetgum tree she used to dig gum out of, a look of concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot brick

The yard is only in the beginning and at the end. The mother waits for her older daughter Dee’s arrival in the yard. “It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room” (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, pg. 345). The mother and her younger daughter, Maggie, made it clean and wavy and swept just like a floor so anyone can come and sit. Whereas the mother prefers outside, Dee on the other hand, prefers the inside, including the possessions she wants to take with her and remembrances of the past, such as the quilt. As Dee left, the mother and Maggie sat in the yard, enjoying time spent together, until it was time to go in and go to bed (Kirszner & Mandell,

“A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room.” (Walker 268) Mama express the beauty of her yard and the comfort it brings to her. From the air to the irregular grooves in the ground illustrates that Mama and Maggie have little control over the environment. In other words the yard defines their house and the comfort it bring to them. The yard also illustrates that Mama is free from all regrets and shortcomings that happened

In the short story “The Flowers,” Alice Walker uses key details to portray Myop as an archetype of carefree childhood innocence. The name Myop, derived from the condition Myopia, means to be nearsighted, or unable to foresee. In the first paragraph of the story Walker introduces the idyllic setting and character, describing that Myop felt “light and good in the warm sun… each day a golden surprise” (Paragraph 1). Myop begins to set out on an archetypal journey, taking her own path, ‘skipping lightly, feeling as though nothing exists but her own song” (Paragraph 2). This symbolizes Myop’s naive world where no problems exist. However, Myop did keep an eye out for one thing: snakes, an archetype of evil.

The story begins with a young girl, Myop, enjoying a beautiful summer day. The imagery portrays her youthful innocence, drawing the reader in with words such as “light” and “golden”. She seems to live in a world free of danger and pain. The mood takes a turn as the reader is informed that this had been the first day she had explored these woods without the protection of her mother, suggesting a possible breach of innocence. She continues skipping along and soaking in the beauty of nature around her, though she does to begin to keep an eye out for snakes, signifying the first hint of danger in Myop’s innocent world. She carries on picking flowers, but starts to become uneasy of her surroundings. She had