Erdrich's Short Story 'The Flower'

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“The Flower” is a short story that shifts between all three points of views. The story is about an eleven-year-old girl that is sold by her mother to Mackinnon. Mackinnon is a disgusting man, who has a seventeen-year-old boy working with him called Wolfred. Wolfred and the young girl start to bond and soon become friends. They poison Mackinnon and they run away together. They face struggles, but at the end they make it. At one point the story includes all the characters point of view. Erdrich shifts point of view by signaling dialogue. For example, he writes “All I did was ask her name, he said, throwing up his hands”. He uses first person by using I and then smoothly transitions back to third. Most of the story is told in the third …show more content…

We got to know more of what was going through his head. We knew he was a boy with a kind heart that wanted to protect the girl, whose name is Flower. Wolfred is the main character of this short story and Flower is the secondary. We are told about Wolfred’s background story. We are introduced to is unmaliciously heart when he puts mud back on Flower’s face. Later, because of his observations we connect the dots that Mackinnon was molesting Flower. We are introduced to his inner thoughts as he is thinking of a way to hurt Mackinnon. When they run away, he falls sick and we see what Flower can do through him. In my opinion, we find out who Flower is because she meets Wolfred. Flower is an eleven-year-old girl, who is an independent survival. When we see things in her point of view, we see how strong she can be. She is sold by her mother and towards the end we are told she still misses her regardless of it. She is the one that knows how to survive in the wood, by finding food and building shelter. She nurses Wolfred back to health. She then takes on the journey to go to a boarding school by herself to gain an education. We are told how she slowly begins to adjust to her new life away from what she had lived

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