The Flowers By Alice Walker Analysis

Alice Walker uses the narrative element of imagery to craft a powerful story in “The Flowers” by using very descriptive sentences and singular words. She uses these to clearly depict the setting, characters and many other aspects of her story. To begin, in the very first paragraph , Walker writes, “ The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash, made each day a golden surprize that caused excited little tremors up her jaws.” Here, the author is able to create a scene in the fall, that further helps the reader imagine the joyful scene the story starts off with. Walker uses words like, golden, surprize, and excited to how how Myops attitude reflects a sense of pure innocents. Next, the quote, “Myop watched the tiny white bubbles disrupt the thin black scale of soil and water that silently rose and slid down the stream.” shows how Myop is happy and has childish innocents. Words like, tiny, bubbles, disrupt and many more used in the quote, help to convey more images of the tone of this story. Finally, as the story’s mood and tone begins to change, there is one quote that stands out. “It was the rotted remains of a noose...now blending into the soil. Around an overhanging limb of a great spreading oak clung another piece.” Walker uses this quote to depict a new sad and gloomy mood change and to show that Myop found the body of a man who had been lynched. Here, the author has also conveyed that this new mood will continue as Myopic innocents degrades. Lastly, the final words in this short story, “And the summer was over.” creates a powerful, descriptive ending. These examples show how the author, Alice Walker used the narrative element of imagery to show how the story, “The Flowers” turns from a cheerful, happy mood at the beginning, to a gloomy, unpleasant mood at the end.