Lizabeth In Eugenia Collier's Marigolds

In this story “The Bean Trees” by Barbara Kingslover we meet Taylor Greer, an average teenager from Pittman, Kentucky. Even though Taylor has never been through anything truly horrific in her life how can she truly understand how unpleasant the world can be? Taylor’s personal growth in the “The Bean Trees” is a part of an uncertain journey because Taylor is thrown into motherhood and forced to see the bad experiences people go through in life.

Eugenia Collier, the author of the short story Marigolds makes great use of literary devices such as imagery, diction, flashback, and juxtaposition in a way that creates a voice for the narrator that conveys both the regret over, and possibly the longing for her childhood. The diction, that is, the vocabulary choice is expertly combined with imagery, or the unique descriptions and sensory details, in order to allow the reader to formulate the experiences and the surroundings of the narrator's childhood in their imaginations. Flashback is used to allow the narrator to not only explain how she viewed the events of her past as a child, but to compare these views with her adult feelings of the same events. Juxtaposition aids in further explaining the connection between the setting and emotions of the main character, creating a better picture of the narrator’s life. These elements all combine to construct a narrative that effectively conveys the coming of age theme.

In remembering her seventh-grade class in 1965, Charlotte recalls how much she and her friends loved Miss Hancock. They were "backward" because they "had not yet embraced sophistication, boredom, cruelty, drugs, alcohol, or sex." Because of their innocence and their sheltered environments, Miss Hancock "was able to survive, even flourish" as their teacher. Charlotte recalls when Miss Hancock read poetry aloud, the class "sat bewitched, transformed," and they were "drugged by some words as some children are by electronic games." This description juxtaposes the end of the short story. Miss Hancock's teaching career no longer inspired the children because they were no longer the broad-minded, influenceable children they once were. Nostalgia eats away at Miss Hancock, especially in the case of Charlotte. Once so inspired by the composure of a metaphor, “grown up” Charlotte, when asked if she still wrote metaphors responded, “oh, I dunno.” Miss Hancock once knew the mesmerizing and transformative power of words; however, as she and her students aged the words lost their power, in turn she too lost power.

Their outwardly pristine appearance juxtaposes with the drab, unkempt town with peeling paint and rusty fences, where spousal rape, adultery and paedophilia lie just below the surface. Through this leverage of the ability to transform and astound, Tilly is able to gain ‘information’ to achieve her objective of discovering the truth behind the events of her past. The promise to transform Gertrude into the ‘most striking girl in the room’ and Marigold’s] dress looking ‘better than everyone else’ are the beginnings of the truth being unravelled and ‘rubbish’ revealed.

There comes a point in one’s life when they must recognize the hardships placed upon them, and instead of being ignorant of those hardships, they must confront them head-on. In “Marigolds”, a short story by Eugenia Collier, the main protagonist, Lizabeth, encounters various struggles that come with living in a poor town in rural Maryland during the Depression, allowing her to learn more about growing up and accepting reality with all its flaws. Lizabeth is a 14-year-old girl who feels a conflict between her inner child and her inner woman, as she is unable to do anything that satisfies both sides of her. She feels too old to be a child, yet too young to be a

The friends of the narrator, however, do not hide in the imaginary world of childhood and are maturing into adolescents. Sally, “ screamed if she got her stockings muddy,” felt they were too old to “ the games” (paragraph 9). Sally stayed by the curb and talked to the boys (paragraph 10).

Miss Lottie’s old house symbolizes the deterioration of the entire nation during the Great Depression while the marigolds she plants represent hope in the face of despair. In detail, having Joey deciding to go to Miss Lottie’s house, Lizabeth describes the house as “...the most ramshackle of all [the] ramshackle homes.” (257). During the Great Depression, everyone has many money problems. So the fact that Miss Lottie’s house isn’t the best of all of the houses, shows how the Great Depression causes hardships. The Great Depression makes it so that the nation suffers in an ongoing poverty, which is why Miss Lottie’s house is very much broken. Furthermore, Lizabeth continues to describe the house when she states “a brisk wind might have blown it down… There it stood...a gray, rotting thing with no porch, no

In the short story “Marigolds”, the author, Eugenia Collier, uses several key events throughout the short story to represent the unseen cage that the main character, Lizabeth, is trapped in, and ultimately breaks. The story is set in a shanty town, likely taking place during the Great Depression. Throughout the story, Lizabeth goes through a difficult stage in life, a stage in which she is in conflict about whether she wants to be a carefree, innocent child, or an educated, compassionate adult. The climax of the story, when Lizabeth tears and rips up Miss Lottie’s marigolds, is such an emotional moment for Lizabeth that she finally completes her transition to adulthood, understands her endless cycle of poverty, and breaks the final bar of the cage.

The character Lizabeth in “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier changes the course of the story. This is evident on page 219 when Lizbeth and her friends ruin some of Miss Lottie's Marigolds by throwing pebbles at them and taking the heads of the flower. This shows her being irresponsible and childish. When the others run, however, she feels ashamed by what she had done. Lizabeth also changes when she hears her father crying. She is confused and scared because she is not sure of what had been happening. She is further confused when her mother begins to comfort her husband as he is acting weak (page 221-222). Further, Lizabeth’s transformation is notable on page 222 when she decides to leave the house with her younger brother, being both responsible

The trials and tribulations adolescents face as they shed their innocence and cross the threshold into adulthood is a universal issue facing young readers in all eras. The dazzling use of simile in Charlies’ statement “my exit from

One of the universal themes of literature is the idea that children suffer because of the mistakes of an earlier generation. In Janie’s case,

Using descriptive language, she writes “several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in the deafening noise of the spindles and the loons spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and ribbons for us to buy”(ln.18-22). Adding a visual image into the audience’s minds, Kelley shows how the children in labor are forced into harsh conditions to survive because of the lack of child labor laws. In addition, she describes “a little girl, on her thirteenth birthday, could start away from her home at half past five in the afternoon, carrying her pail of midnight luncheon…”(ln.48-50). Using this description, Kelley indicates that children should not be working late into the night which evokes the feeling of sympathy from the audience. With these examples, Kelley calls forth the feeling of pity and guilt from the audience when they learn that they are allowing children to force themselves into harsh

The first example of the children losing their innocence is when they are describing the transition from elementary school to junior high school. Each has found that instead of one teacher, they in fact had many teachers. Additionally, the girls they were once friends with, now different in size and grace, ignored them. This becomes apparent that things have change as a result of age.

The children in the neighborhood are probably the most influential people in Sylvia’s life, since she is around them most frequently, and they are her peers. They too seem to come from the same kind of background as Sylvia—poor, defensive,

In the beginning, the author explains how this young girl, Lizabeth, lived in the culturally deprived neighborhood during the depression.  Lizabeth is at the age where she is just beginning to become a young woman and is