Analysis Of The Violets By Gwen Harwood

In The Chrysanthemums, Elisa is a woman who is trapped at her husband Henry’s ranch by her gender and society’s idea of what a woman can manage. She is a very strong, capable woman who works all day to make the house spotless and the garden thrive. Elisa is good at her work, “behind her stood the neat white farm house… it was hard swept looking little house, with hard-polished windows, and a clean mud-mat on the front steps”. That show just how much work she puts into keeping the house clean. Elisa knows she is capable of successfully accomplishing any number of what society labels as men’s work and being held back makes her bitter and resentful. In an attempt to feel freedom, Elisa gifts some of her chrysanthemums to a traveling solicitor. She is devastated when she spots the flowers dumped on the road on her way to town with Henry. Elisa, like her flowers, feels discarded and devalued by men and society.

In “Marigolds” a young girl is growing up during the Great Depression. For Lizabeth, the narrator, everyday is a challenge. As she transitions from an innocent, naive child to an aware, yet unsure young woman, the smooth road she’s been traveling on suddenly becomes bumpy and unfamiliar when a fit of anger taken out on her neighbor marks Lizabeth’s growing up. “All the smoldering emotions of that summer swelled in me and burst- the great need for my mother who was never there, the hopelessness of our poverty and degradation, the bewilderment of being neither child nor woman and yet both at once…”, (Collier, “Marigolds”). All of the emotions that Lizabeth has been holding in spill out of her in an audacious, violent action that will exile her childhood; the destroying of Miss Lottie’s prized marigolds.When Lizabeth realizes with remorse what she’s done, she gains the heavy burden of adulthood. “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”, (Collier, “Marigolds”). When Lizabeth conveys that Miss Lottie had planted marigolds as a show of passion and hope, she becomes compassionate towards Miss Lottie, ridding her of her childish innocence. While “Hard on the Gas” is minimally worded, the meaning of the poem speaks volumes. The poem conveys growing up, and the fact that the road to adulthood is not, in fact, smooth. “Rush, rest, rush, rest”,

Specifically, the photograph of Lily and her mother can be classified as a symbol of hope and recovery that bestows Lily a new outlook on life in the form of her mother’s unconditional love. After being shown a box of her mother’s precious keepsakes, Lily promptly notices a photograph of her and her mother, smiling and rubbing their noses together. Caught up in the loveliness of the photo, Lily, “looked down at the picture, then closed [her] eyes. [She] figured May must’ve made it to heaven and explained to [her] mother about the sign [she] wanted. The one that would let [her] know [she] was loved” (Kidd 276). After learning the unvarnished truth about her mother, Lily was left hopeless. This despair was brought forth due to her knowledge that her mother had left her before returning home, only to be killed by Lily’s own hand. Consequently, Lily’s feelings of culpability were escalated. However, hope is obtained after Lily catches a glimpse of this life-altering photograph. Her previous feelings of guilt are relinquished after becoming conscious of how “[she] was loved” by her mother. This newfound hope was all due to a single “[look] down at the picture[.]” She determines that this photograph was the “sign” she had so desperately longed for all of her life, in the absence of her mother, and in the presence of her unyielding guilt. With this in mind, it can be concluded that the photograph of Lily and her mother is symbolic of rehabilitation. Kidd uses symbolism to show that Lily’s mental health is improving, and, with the help of her mother’s symbolic nature, will begin to forgive herself and be set free from suffering, as suggested by the

At the turn of the 20th century, women were considered inferior to men: they were only required to stay at home, take care of households and children. “The Chrysanthemums”, as told by John Steinbeck, is a story of a woman during that period who tries to change the course of her destiny. In this story, the two-fold issues of femininity and symbolism play a critical part in explaining this helplessness. Steinbeck uses the narrative to signify the hope for change of the woman as well as her character by illustrating different similarities between Elisa and her flowers. Readers are able to comprehend how a lady feels when she is caged within her life, and the struggles to

Throughout literature, countless poems, plays, and novels are written about lost loves. Either written as a poem of remembering the past or telling the story of people trying regain a love from the past, romantic nostalgia is what causes their emotions in poem or actions within a story. American writers of the 20th century have managed to capture melancholy but also as response to the times that these authors wrote about past loves through the characters in the works and, maybe even as a warning for those who did divulge into the nostalgia of past romance. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s melancholic poem, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” and Fitzgerald’s frigid short story “Winter Dreams” and his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, show a dark side of past romances as weapons against one’s self that gave perspective, showed reality, and even caused death.

It’s always intense to wake up from a vivid dream, you feel a thousand images floating around in your head and then swiftly in one moment you’re back to reality. In Still Memory by Mary Karr the speaker recounts an authentic childhood dream. Karr places the reader into the speaker’s childhood home and describes the daily life of her family. The significance of the poem was a deep insight of the speaker’s childhood life, family, and an understanding of how he or she grew to be a writer. Mary Karr achieved this purpose by using rhetorical strategies such as imagery, flashback, and a nostalgic tone.

Elisa tends her garden with care and finds happiness and strength in it. Figuratively speaking, it takes the place of the children she does not have; it defines her sexuality and femininity. She cares for her flowers so delicately and motherly, placing a “wire fence that protected her flower garden”. This wire fence symbolizes her isolation from the rest of the world as well as her closed off heart towards her husband. Elisa waits for the time when she will be

“The Flowers” by Alice Walker is a short story that describes a young girl’s abrupt transition from childhood to adolescence when she discovers a lynched man’s dead body as she explores the areas surrounding her family’s sharecropper home. The story’s gradual change in tone, mood, and diction creates a suspense as the young girl realizes the unfamiliarity and strangeness in the far land. The narrator uses the symbolic meaning of flowers to show the protagonist, Myop’s transition from childhood naivety and innocence to adolescent awareness. She also uses this symbolism of flowers to emphasize the fragility of life. Walker uses flowers to symbolize Myop’s innocence.

“A flower for mummy, a flower for daddy,” a little girl chanted merrily. Petunia was collecting flowers from a garden deep within the confines of the forest. Her eyes remained fixed on her bouquet as the wind blew madly through her brown silky hair. Suddenly, almost like magic, an elderly lady appeared, her face filled with warts and wrinkles.

Violets Are Blue by James Patterson is filled with nothing but the unexpected. Patterson portrays his famous character, Alex Cross, in a series of unforeseen events. Alex Cross is a Detective famous for his work on the force. His instincts make him the best at what he does. When a series of bizarre gruesome murders take place in multiple areas, it is up to Alex and his partner Jamila, and his F.B.I friend Kyle to investigate. All while this is happening, Alex has to deal with his own killer stalker called “The mastermind”,A man that has tormented Alex by killing the people he loves. Diving deeper and deeper into the investigation, they realize that the murders have to do with role playing vampire brothers named Michael and William. All under the control of their “sire” named

Alice Walker’s “The Flowers” had the best description out of all three stories. Though “The Dogs Could Teach Me,” by Gary Paulsen, had very good description as well, “The Flowers” had more examples and better examples.

Young girls at the age of fourteen were once traded to entertain and offer themselves to men without the blink of an eye as virgin courtesans. In Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement, Violet Minturn goes from her mother’s supplied comfort and security to a world that requires one to build and maintain their own success. The trick lies in that their leverage is dependent on their patrons and suitors. Despite this obstacle, Violet flows - though not without meandering through an identity crisis and a conflict with the adult world - to independence.

Sorrow is life as life is sorrow. Sorrow discriminate no one and affects everyone. From the loss of innocent to the loss of life, sorrow is man's best friend as it is an enemy, but with sorrow, there comes hope for rejuvenation with the change of seasons. William Carlos Williams closely analyzes sorrow a dead partner creates in his poem "The Widow's Lament in the Springtime" with his naturalistic imagery to depict the movement of sorrow through time.

I stood, looking over the desolation that was my garden, and felt pity for the plants set into my care. Girdled corn, wilt eaten tomatoes, and stunted vines were all products of my efforts, and all I got for it was a few handfuls of beans and some dwarf cucumbers. Despite that however, I was happy not because of the plants, but because I knew where I was and I could improve my skills. This hobby that I

In order to regain its market share lost in the past year, Lily’s Floral will be rolling out a performance management and reward system for all Regional Managers company wide. Lily’s market share has been reduced by 25% by its competitors, so the company’s primary goal is to win back that share of the market. As part of the new system, two goals have been set for all Regional Managers: 1) Each region is to acquire at least five new accounts each quarter 2) each region is to have appointments with the buyers for at least ten prospective accounts. Rewards for reaching these goals include: A) Two-part quarterly bonus structure. One part is dependent on the individual manager reaching their goal, while the other part is dependent on all regions reaching their