Marigolds Short Story Characters

“Long Beautiful Hair,” wrote by Ann Hood, is a piece most would assume just to be a narrative of how the author goes through different hair phases in her lifetime. However, that is only the superficial meaning; Hood’s piece is metaphorically set up for a greater purpose. If analyzed correctly, her piece is a complex explanation of a life lesson that people often struggle with: figuring out who they are created to be. In order for her to convey the message fully to the audience, she tells her story in a time progressing sequence while also using rhetorical strategies such as pathos and a metaphor.

Through her use of diction, imagery, and syntax in her story, "Marigolds" Eugenia Collier captures the voice of an adult looking back on a significant event from her childhood. When the narrator thinks about her past she remembers, "I opened my swollen eyes and saw in front of me a pair of large, calloused feet; My gaze lifted to the swollen legs, then the shadowed Indian face surrounded by stubby white hair" (Collier 22). These words are examples of imagery because it captures the narrator's voice as a sacred child looking up at the old woman. Another example of diction is when Eugenia Collier writes 'I leaped furiously into the mounds of marigold and pulled madly, trampling and pulling and destroying perfect yellow blooms" (Collier 21). This

In the story "Marigolds", a story by Eugenia Collier, the author uses the literary techniques of juxtaposition and symbolism to show the overall message that during the coming of age and maturity in a world full of poverty and darkness, people always look for a light of happiness. The author uses juxtaposition of the conversation of the mother and father to show how the darkness, which is represented by the father, is trying to destroy the lightness, which is represented by the mother. In rage and pain of his poverty bent life, Lizabeth’s father is clouded with darkness and fear, but Lizabeth’s mother a still hopeful and looking for something to bring joy to the family. Lizabeth's dad explains to Lizabeth’s mother, “Twenty-two years, Maybelle, twenty-two years, and I

Eugenia Collier, the author of Marigolds evokes empathy in the audience to inspire action and bring about a deeper understanding of the world by using first person point of view in her text, so she used Lizabeth an imaginary person to tell a story from her point of view. She uses Lizabeth as the narrator of the story, so Lizabeth tells a story about her life experience in dusty depression-era town. In the text where it mentions “whatever verve, there was left in her, whatever was of love and beauty and joy that had…. Awkward and ashamed”(Lizabeth 62-63) and “She never planted marigolds again….. And I too have planted marigolds”(Lizabeth 64), she is trying to describe something. She is trying to describe that the marigolds brought happiness

Sacrificed the truth, beauty and the right to think, happiness and comfort is just indulgent, it is the discomfort brought by the misery, responsibility and the bonding give us the weight of life. The world is full of people who try hard to gain happiness, and we all have at least one time the idea of living in a perfect world, a world without pain, without misery, without getting old and without cancers. We always ignored the importance and the beauty of uncomfortableness, just as a quote in this book said, “Stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand”. After read this book, I started to be more objective at those bad things I used to hate, to understand the significance of art and to be grateful to this imperfect world we are

“Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier is a personal narrative of the challenges that adolescents face with coming of age. The author is able to accurately capture the voice of her younger self-using literary devices such as imagery, juxtaposition, and diction. The author uses these literary devices to give the reader a precise representation of the struggles she surpassed, which pushed her towards adulthood.

Almost everyone has had a tantrum before, so there should be no surprise when it occurs in novels and short stories. Notable characters such as Lizabeth from the short story, “Marigolds”, by Eugenia Collier and Jem in To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee, impulsively burst with rage, unable to control their emotions because after all, they are just children. The fourteen-year-old African-American girl named Lizabeth along with her family struggle financially in an impoverished town during the Great Depression Era. Despite this, Lizabeth and her little brother enjoy childish acts especially annoying Miss Lottie, an elderly neighbor who cultivates Marigolds in her yard. Later in the novel, Lizabeth lets loose her emotions from her impoverishment and her parent’s financial problems out on these flowers by trampling on them. On the contrary, the elderly neighbor, Mrs. Dubose, in To Kill a Mockingbird is the one pestering Jem, Atticus Finch’s thirteen-year-old son, and not the other way around. The fact that Atticus defended a black man accused of rape displeases her; thus, Mrs. Dubose verbally attacks Jem by comparing his father to African-Americans.This is considered an insult during the Great Depression, the time period of the novel, as black people are viewed as lowly human beings. As a result, Jem takes personal offense to this and strikes back at Mrs. Dubose by ruining her camellias. Even though the physical destructions of the flowers are similar, Lizabeth and Jem’s reason behind it, the consequences and the process of maturation are different.

The theme of “Marigolds” demonstrates Lizabeth’s change in attitude throughout the story just as maturation affects every modern teen. The short story “Marigolds” is about when the main character, Lizabeth, slashes up the marigolds in Ms. Lottie’s garden. When she realized what she was doing, she saw the time at the end of her childhood and the start of her adulthood. This theme can be seen throughout many teens’ lives. She and teens today experiencing this can be blind to happiness because of the setting they’ve grown in, influenced by rebellion, but can also find happiness as they grow older and realize the settings around them.

The transformations in people are caused by a variety of circumstances. Within the variety of these circumstances, stress is the most influential one. In Eugenia Collier’s short story Marigolds, it tells the narrative of a young African-American girl living in rural Maryland. Due to her frustration with life, she destroys Miss Lottie’s marigolds. In the story Marigolds, the author uses the narrator’s transformation and characterization to convey that identity is only found in times of crisis.

Living in poverty and having to face one’s crumbling society is extremely stressful. In Eugenia Collier’s short story, “Marigolds,” the main character, Lizabeth, and the other citizens of the town she lives in, including her parents, her friends, and Miss Lottie, must learn to cope with that stress, and in Lizabeth’s case, learn how to deal with the effects of maturation. The different types of conflict within “Marigolds” are man versus man, man versus society, and man versus self because Lizabeth has to face peer pressure, the living conditions brought by the Great Depression, as well as the development of her own emotions.

A person’s perception of anything is always influenced by their experiences. Alice Walker, the writer of “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self”, is no different in regards to her perception of beauty. Walker uses various stylistic elements throughout her writing to convey her shifting outlook toward her own beauty. She also employs various rhetorical strategies in order to deliver a clear and luring story that keeps the reader engaged as she describes her life as a flashback. Walker uses the accident that happens during her childhood to prove that one’s mindset can be altered because of a profound experience and how her attitude completely transforms from a conceited and arrogant child into a newly reborn woman who sees a new kind of

“The Beauty-Happiness Connection” published in The Atlantic on August 15, 2014 by Cody C. Delistraty (1) is an insightful piece into the world, and how the beauty around us has a direct correlation between people’s happiness. Mr. Delistrsty has an understanding that humans associate beauty with happiness which has a calming affect and quite possible evokes hope as well. He supports this by referencing Alexander Nehamas a Princeton Philosopher who states “Beauty manifests a hope that life would be better if the object of beauty were part of it.”

In Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve, the antagonist, Eve Harrington, goes to extremely far ends to achieve what she believes will make her happy. But ultimately, though her machinations allow her to fulfil her dreams, they bring her anything but happiness. Margo Channing, the film’s protagonist, acts as a counterpoint to Eve in her own goals for happiness, and winds up successful. Through both Eve and Margo’s individual journeys, Mankiewicz explores the notion of happiness and what it means to be happy and successful, and if these two things can ever coincide.

In “Incident in a Rose Garden” we are cast into a garden on a bright summers day where the frightened gardener seeks to flee death to be with his living family. It is hard to come up with two more different settings. Consider the bleak and dreary winter night versus the walk in the sunny summer flower garden. There are also two completely different moods, one glum and morose and the other excited and frantic.

(Collier 213). This symbolizes the beauty and significance that Miss Lottie’s marigolds had towards Lizabeth’s time during the Great Depression. In such way, through the haze of darkness, shines the beauty of Miss Lottie’s marigolds. In conclusion, in the short story, “Marigolds,” the theme that is represented throughout the story is, “Beauty can be found even in the darkest times.” This theme can be represented through Lizabeth’s thoughts, and through the importance and meaning that Miss Lottie’s marigolds