Is Eugenia Collier's Lizabeth Malicious?

Before characterizing Lizabeth as malicious, a definition must be provided. The first online source defines malicious as “Intentionally harmful, spiteful” (dictionary.com). Another source, Collins English Dictionary, provides this similar definition: “Intended to harm people or their reputation, or cause them embarrassment and upset.” Finally, the last website notes a slightly different definition which states, “Someone who is malicious enjoys hurting or embarrassing others” (vocabulary.com). Unlike the others, the final definition provided adds that the malicious acts done are for enjoyment. All of the definitions impart two criteria are needed to prove that someone is malicious. The first criterion that must be apparent is that someone must

commit an act which was meant cause harm without having a prior motive. Someone malicious would not be acting on revenge, they simply are spiteful and malevolent. To fulfill the second criterion, one must find causing the hurtful acts enjoyable. Their enjoyment is usually easily recognizable and obvious as it’s expressed physically.
In “Marigolds,” Lizabeth is portrayed as malicious by Eugenia Collier, she does this by showing that Lizabeth repeatedly intentionally attempts to hurt Miss Lottie and adds that Lizabeth enjoys causing harm.

An instance where Lizabeth displays malice is when Miss Lottie attempts to scare away the kids tormenting her. Lizabeth recalls, “Then I lost my head entirely, mad with power of inciting such rage, and ran out of the bushes in the storm of pebbles, straighty toward Miss Lottie, chanting madly, ‘Old witch, felling a ditch, picked up a penny and thought she was rich!’” (Collier). With the given situation Lizabeth’s rhyme, “picked up a penny and thought she was rich,” was chosen with thought and deliberately shouted. Lizabeth knew what socio-economic situation Miss Lottie is and was in her whole life as an African American woman during the late seventeenth and early 18th century, so she used this against her in a harsh rhyme about Miss Lottie’s poverty ridden life. This reveals Lizabeth’s intentions: causing distress. Furthermore, Lizabeth states she “lost her head” and went “mad with power of inciting such rage,” this leads to the inference that she did not expect such a sufficient outcome. When causing harm without reason it usually fails to succeed, but the fulfillment of their attack caused to her feel powerful and in turn go mad. Lizabeth maliciously incited an incursion on Miss Lottie which often leads to impulsiveness and loss of thought, as shown in the story, which can cause a harmful

outcome.