Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Comparative essay marigolds
Marigold essay
Marigolds By Eugenia W. Collier essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Comparative essay marigolds
After reading and annotating Marigolds by Eugenia W. Collier, I learned that there are some things we don’t know or realize when we are a child. When we become a woman, we have a different perspective on things. That is what Eugenia learned by the end of the story. Once she ruined all of Miss Lottie’s marigolds, she immediately felt guilty. Miss Lottie stood there with no anger on her face, just disappointment. Eugenia said that was when she saw her childhood fade and womanhood start to begin. Once she began womanhood, she learned that those flowers were precious to Miss Lottie and she was tying to make some beauty out of her shanty house. She viewed Miss Lottie as “… only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness
In Toni Morrison’s novel, The Song of Solomon, flowers are associated with romance and love, and so the way in which the central female characters interact with flora is indicative of the romance in their lives. Flowers, red roses in particular, are a universal symbol for love and fertility. Though Ruth Foster, Lena called Magdalene Dead, and First Corinthians Dead are associated with different types of flowers in distinctive ways, the purpose of the motif stays the same; flowers reveal one’s romantic status and are a precursor for the romance that is to come. Throughout the entire novel, the flowers share in common that they are not real. Some flowers appear printed, others as fake substitutes, and some are imaginary. This is an essential
Looking out the window, I spotted my grandmother planting beautiful orchids and dahlias. They swayed in the soft spring breeze as she danced around them, sprinkling droplets of water on their petals. From that moment on, my dream had been to create a garden of my own. The next Saturday, instead of going to the market, I bought seeds, a shovel, watering can, and soil. When I reached home, I started right away on my garden. It was behind the house in a sunny place. About an hour passed and my flowers were all planted. I called my new garden “Ted Myles’ Garden of Smiles”. That was a pretty clever name, huh? After waiting for a few months, I learned my lesson. Never plant in a super sunny spot. I found this out in a very sad way. My flowers never grew. The seeds just sat there under the ground. I watered them, fertilized the soil, watered them again, and yet they still sat there in the soil, still as a statue. But I kept trying, planting seed after seed, determined to receive just a glimpse of green appear over the soil. Finally, a month later, my tulips grew. I took great care of them, making sure they didn’t die, but everything must die
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 almost ready to give up her childish ways. Through this time period she was confused and could not quite understand what was happening to her. In the end she rips Miss Lottie’s marigolds among the ugly place in which she lived. The marigolds were the only things that make the place a bit beautiful to the eye. In this scene the marigolds represent the only hope the people had for themselves in this time of depression. This could reveal how the author has experienced a loss of hope in times of need. In her explanation of how Lizabeth had torn up the flowers and destroyed all hope in that time of depression, might explain that she has also destroyed hope in a time of pain and grief. Later she writes, “And I too have planted marigolds.” This could mean she has learned from her experiences and that she has finally found hope and always tries to seek the good within the bad and the ugly. On another note, it could mean she just wants to act out on something, but she can’t, so she writes about her...
Flowers are incredibly important, especially in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. There are three main flowers pointed out in the course of the whole story. There are Miss Maudie’s azaleas, Mrs Dubose’s camellias, and Mayella Ewell’s geraniums. Each bloom was assigned in this way solely for the relation towards their corresponding characters. Flowers can be used to express emotion or send a message, and those associated with Maudie, Dubose, and Mayella are vital to the novel.
Another factor that clearly brings out the theme is the fact that she claims that orderliness of family roses is her pride. However she may not necessarily be that orderly as depicted in the development of that story. The author of the story Shirley Jackson uses the author and her ambiguous cha...
When the man and the women start arguing about the baby, they both “knocked down a flowerpot.” (Caver 124). Flowerpots are usually broken into pieces when knocked from large heights, flower pots usually contain flowers and are kept to show beauty. The flowerpot symbolizes the couples relationship with one another: the couple was trying to put an effort to keep their relationship beautiful, but the relationship ended up falling apart. Using symbolism, Caver implies that one has a tendency to ruin the beauty that one has created oneself. He continues on showing the outcome of the couple’s fight using
Eugenia Collier’s “Marigolds” is a memoir of a colored girl living in the Great Depression. The story does not focus on the troubles society presents to the narrator (Elizabeth), but rather is focused on the conflict within her. Collier uses marigolds to show that the changes from childhood to adulthood cause fear in Elizabeth, which is the enemy of compassion and hope.
The end of child innocence is a significant part of transitioning into young adulthood. This is illustrated in “Marigolds,” a short story written by Eugenia Collier, that takes place in a small town trapped in poverty during the Great Depression. The main character Lizabeth is a fourteen-year-old girl who is playing with her brother and neighborhood friends and just being kids when she simultaneously encounters an experience that teach about compassion, which eventually helps her step into adulthood. Through Lizabeth’s childhood experience, Collier portrays that maturity is based on compassion and overcoming the innocence of childhood.
When Marie-Neige believed that she was in the extreme depth of hopelessness, the unexpected generosity and kindness from Lucien allowed her to re-evaluate herself regarding her previous negative outlook of life. Lucien’s decision to purchase her property and sign it under her name after realizing all the pain and miseries Marie-Neige experienced instigated a substantial change within Marie-Neige’s character. This revelation caused Marie-Neige to transform from someone who had “been given nothing in her life, on even the slightest scale” (pg.6) to someone who began to “recognize the sudden lightness” (pg.6) in life by discovering the limitless possibilities of her own farm. Because of Lucien’s compassion and kindness, Marie-Neige realized how such a simple act could greatly positively influence her view of the world. This feeling of hope and optimism has allowed her to destroy the barriers encompassed around her poverty-stricken life and discover her true aspirations in society filled with endless opportunities. In addition, the allusion to Cornelius also demonstrates the importance of the farm to Marie-Neige since it is an essential for her way of living. When Marie-Neige was still living a poverty-stricken, difficult life, she attempted to cultivate her plants successfully in order to one day be able to enter society and forever leave her destitute, poor state. Now that she has rights to her own land, she believes that she is now able to “enter the world of the grower of the black tulip” (pg. 6). This means now that Marie-Neige has possession of her own property, she will be able to properly tend her own flowers by herself and compete within the mainstream, competitive society while abandoning her previous sufferings and
When she madly demolished the beautiful marigolds, I wanted to scream;[ADM6] she had ruined the only things ravishing[ADM7] and worthwhile, taking her anger and confusion out on something that seemed so perfect. I felt like the marigolds because far too often I have been in a similar situation. For example, I play the saxophone well, making it into Wind Ensemble (the highest[ADM8] band) as a freshman. Many call me "perfect,"[ADM9] and because I can play better than they can, they hate me. They treat me rudely,[ADM10] and they don't even know me except for my ability to play an instrument. I feel dejected and trampled over socially because [ADM11]I happen to be able to be gifted in an area. Some also detest me because of my grades, making assumptions before knowing me [ADM12]that because I get decent grades, I am perfect and too good for everyone. Instead of seeing past me[ADM13], they make fun of me and put me down for achieving my highest goals. So when Lizabeth tore at the flowers, smoldering[ADM14] them and killing them because they were full of hope and bloom, which she had none of[ADM15], I felt angry with her for handling her situation in this way. She killed innocent life that thrived and stood out, because it possessed things that she wanted and that she was being deprived of[ADM16]. Because of this terrible reaction to this scene, I think that it is safe to assume [ADM17]I am not sympathetic towards anyone who hurts others, physically or mentally, for being happier or full of hope or more talented than them because they feel hopeless, fearful, or even feel confused and overwhelmed.
Lizabeth associates much of her childhood with the vision of “acid, sterile dust . . . the dry September . . . and grassless yards” (Collier, p. 748). The use of this specific imagery relates the effect that poverty had on Lizabeth’s mentality and the role it played in shaping her perspective. A part of that effect is her inability to understand beauty amongst ugliness. This is exemplified in Miss Lottie’s marigolds. Lizabeth describes the marigolds as “the strangest part of [Miss Lottie’s yard]” because “they did not fit in with the crumbling decay of the rest of her yard” (Collier, p. 751). Lizabeth’s preoccupation and apparent disgust with Miss Lottie’s marigolds is a reflection of her unfamiliarity with beauty. It is not until she is familiarized with the beauty present in the marigolds that she understands the fault in her perspective. As a women looking back on the events of her childhood, an older Lizabeth recognizes her fault, yet also states “one does not have to be ignorant and poor to find that life is as barren as the dusty yards of [her] town” (Collier, p.
In the short stories, Marigolds by Eugenia Collier, and The Bet by Anton Chekhov, both Lizabeth and the Lawyer, along with their understanding of life, are similar, as well as very different. While both Lizabeth and the Lawyer develop a deeper understanding and knowledge of their situations by the end of each story, the processes that lead them to these realizations are very different, as race, gender, and social class all play a role in how the two characters develop.
The three pieces “Marigolds” By Eugenia W. Coller, “The Flowers” by Alice Walker and “The Problem We All Live With” by Norman Rockwell, all have have to do with defining moments because they all show 3 girls maturing, by having a specific moment in their lives that then defines who they are. For example in the story “Marigolds” by Eugenia W. Coller shows a girl named Elizabeth turning from an immature girl, to a responsible women. As it states in the story “The years have taken me worlds away from that time and that place, from the dust and squalor of our lives, and from the bright thing that I destroyed in a blind, childish striking out at God knows what… For one does not have to be ignorant and poor to find that his life is as barren as the dusty yards of our town. And I too have planted marigolds.” This means that when the years past she realize that the act that she has done was very bad,
In the short story “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, the narrator Lizabeth realizes that she is no longer a child but a grown up woman who renounces her innocence and begins her adulthood by developing a sense of compassion. She learns that the world is more than just the dusty shantytown and a squad of kids she plays with; there are also the complex realities of depression, indifference and poverty. The reason behind this realization is that Lizabeth, at an age of 14, overhears her parents’ conversation about the harsh economic situation that their family is facing. She is filled with anger and detests the unfairness that is given to her family. All these feelings encourage her towards an explosive, malicious act of destruction. She is especially
Although imagery and symbolism does little to help prepare an expected ending in “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, setting is the singular element that clearly reasons out an ending that correlates with the predominant theme of how innocence disappears as a result of facing a grim realism from the cruel world. Despite the joyous atmosphere of an apparently beautiful world of abundant corn and cotton, death and hatred lies on in the woods just beyond the sharecropper cabin. Myop’s flowers are laid down as she blooms into maturity in the face of her fallen kinsman, and the life of summer dies along with her innocence. Grim realism has never been so cruel to the innocent children.