Summary Of Marigolds By Eugenia Collier

168 Words1 Page

Summative Literary Analysis Eugenia Collier’s story “ Marigolds” is a short story about a girl, Lizabeth, who is becoming a woman. Collier uses marigolds as a symbol of beauty to develop Lizabeth. Collier introduces the marigolds as “ a dazzling strip of bright blossoms … warm and passionate and sun golden”(Collier 3). Lizabeth and her friends saw the marigolds as a defacement of the house’s ugliness by their beauty, “They interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place; they were too beautiful”(Collier 3). The marigolds were used to show how ugly the rest of her life was, and Lizabeth did not like the marigolds, because she did not want to see her life in that light. At the end of the story, Lizabeth pulls the marigolds and shows that

Show More
Related

  • The Importance Of Flowers In Toni Morrison's The Song Of Solomon

    637 Words  | 2 Pages

    Each woman in the Dead family is associated with their own wilted flower, which is significant because the flowers exist out of oppression and lack of affection. Before it is clear in the story that Macon and Ruth do not love each other, the flowers that Ruth interacts with beforehand serve as a precursor for the dead romance that is to come. Morrison notes the flower arrangement on Ruth’s dining table, which “once exposed, behaved as though it were itself a plant and flourished into a huge suede-gray flower that throbbed like fever.” The “suede-gray flower” is an artificial fabric flower associated with Ruth reveals that she is deprived of love. By following the life cycle of the “grey-suede flower,” the reader can understand the evolving position that Ruth has had in her home. When the flower was alive, her father was also with her, so she would communicate with her husband and dictate the matters of the household. When the flower was alive, Ruth and Macon were somewhat more in love. Macon was also kept quiet. As the flower weakens and dies, we see Ruth’s strength, independence, and love life dwindling and dying. Thus, it is clear that a

    Read More

  • Summary Of Marigolds By Eugenia W. Collier

    562 Words  | 2 Pages

    Marigolds “Marigolds,” written by the author Eugenia W. Collier, begins with the main character, Elizabeth. The story is told in first person, being told by Elizabeth when she gets older. “Marigolds” takes place in Maryland during the Depression. The reader can tell it is the time of the Depression because in the story it says, “The Depression that gripped the nation was no new thing to us, for the black workers of rural Maryland had always been depressed.” Both the setting and time in this short story are important.

    Read More

  • Lizabeth's Use Of Imagery In Marigolds By Eugenia Collier

    485 Words  | 1 Pages

    “Accept what is, let go of what was and have faith in what will be.” - Anonymous

    Read More

  • Lizabeth's Experiences in Marigolds by Eugenia Collier

    497 Words  | 1 Pages

    'Marigolds' is a story written by the author Eugenia Collier. It is considered a 'coming of age story.' A coming of age story is a story where the protagonist becomes an adult through experiences, knowledge, or an adventure. Throughout the story the main character, Lizabeth, goes through experiences that upset her. These experiences teach her to have compassion and not to be afraid of hope and beauty.

    Read More

  • Fear and Hope in Marigolds

    657 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Where The Lilli Bloom Chapter Summary

    857 Words  | 2 Pages

    Four siblings have been through more than the average person can even imagine; they’ve braved unwanted visitors, disrespect, and loss of both people they love and material possessions. To many readers, this plot may sound familiar. Written by Bill and Vera Cleaver, the novel Where the Lilies Bloom has much more in common with the well-known fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Important characters in the novel include the four Luther siblings (fourteen-year-old Mary Call, eighteen-year-old Devola, ten-year-old Romey, and five-year-old Ima Dean), Roy Luther (their father), Cosby Luther (their deceased but often spoken of mother) Kiser Pease (their neighbor), and Goldie Pease (Kiser’s sister). In the novel, the siblings lose their father

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Chrysanthemums

    1154 Words  | 3 Pages

    "The Chrysanthemums" is a good depiction of most marriages in the early 1900's, the husband is the chief breadwinner and the wife is considered nothing more than a housewife. "The simple story outlines are enriched by irony and imagery which contrast the rich land and the sterile marriage, the fertile plants and Elisa's inner emptiness" (McCarthy 26). The story begins by introducing the setting: "The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and the rest of the world" (Steinbeck 115). This vivid illustration unconsciously gives the reader a look into the dominating theme. However, it is not until the climax of the story that the reader begins to notice Elisa's true pain and need for her own self-identity. The main protagonist i...

    Read More

  • Marigolds By Eugenia Collier Analysis

    766 Words  | 2 Pages

    Any adult would know not to get up the middle of the night and cause destruction Lizabeth could no longer control her emotions the night her father came home and cried to her mother, “I had lost my mind, for all the smoldering emotions of the summer swelled in me and burst…” (Collier 12) Lizabeth, still being a child was so caught up in her feelings that she didn’t think of anything she was doing until after it was done. She trampled and pulled the Marigolds destroying the beauty that Miss Lottie had worked so hard to create. After the demolition of the Marigolds Lizabeth’s childish side if no longer present within her. She is left standing in the ruins of a once beautiful garden, “…awkward and ashamed.”(Collier 13) A girl thrown into womanhood by a great act of emotional

    Read More

  • Annotating Marigolds Analysis

    380 Words  | 1 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of Lizabeth And Marigolds

    649 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • How Margaret Fuller and Fanny Fern Used Writing as a Weapon For Women's Rights

    1225 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Aunt Hetty on Matrimony and The Working Girls of New York Fanny Fern depicted a story of sadness and morose conditions that women had to deal with in order to have a parallel recognition to that o...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Marigolds By Eugenia Collier

    819 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Chrysanthemums And The Story Of An Hour

    1382 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story written by John Steinbeck called “The Chrysanthemums” could be named “The Story of an Afternoon” because of the time range it took the tragedy to occur is around the time of a few hours. John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums” is similar to Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” in the sense of tragic, irony, happening to women in a small amount of time. In both stories women are bamboozled by men, they become misguided and gain a desire. Aiming to achieve the desire causes them to see a false reality and in ruination.

    Read More

  • Objectification of Women in The House of Mirth

    2117 Words  | 5 Pages

    Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth is an affront to the false social values of fashionable New York society.  The heroine is Lily Bart, a woman who is destroyed by the very society that produces her.  Lily is well-born but poor.  The story traces the decline of Lily as she moves through a series of living residences, from houses to hotel lodgings.  Lily lives in a New York society where appearances are all.  Women have a decorative function in such an environment, and even her name, Lily, suggests she is a flower of femininity, i.e. an object of decoration as well as of desirability to the male element.  We see this is very true once Lily's bloom fades, as it were, a time when she is cast aside by her peers no longer being useful as something to admire on the surface.  The theme of the novel in this aspect is that identity based on mere appearance is not enough to sustain the human soul physically or metaphysically.  Once she is no longer able to keep the "eye" of her peers, Lily finds herself with no identity and dies.  This analysis will discuss the theme of the objectification of women in a male dominated society inherent throughout the novel.

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence in The Flowers, by Alice Walker

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Summary Of Marigolds By Eugenia Collier

Open Document