Innocence is as delicate as a flower petal. A strong wind, a curious animal, a cold storm. Innocence has the same delicacy, a trait everyone is born with that eventually fades over time. Myop, in the story, The Flowers by Alice Walker is a young girl whose identity is wrapped around her innocence and her own small little world on her family’s farm. Her false sense of a perfect world is shifted when she comes across a dead body of a man who was lynched and realizes that the world has more evils than she could have imagined. In her poem, Walker uses literary devices to demonstrate the change of identity through the loss of Myop’s innocence.
Alice Walker embellishes on Myop’s innocence in the beginning of the poem, painting a picture for the
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The author has suggested to the reader and the child that there’s danger, however only the reader is aware of the potential harm or predicament. Myop found herself in a “little cove” which she described as “gloomy” (Walker). “The air was damp, the silence close and deep.” The use of the words “close” and “deep” are used to add a sense of foreboding and fear, also signifying that a drastic change is close, potentially a change to her identity. Myop starts to find this dank and gloomy area less appealing and turns to head home, however “it was then she stepped smack into his eyes” (Walker). “Smack” is an onomatopoeia that represents a sharp and sudden sound. The significance of the word “smack” is it represents the moment her identity changes and will change, and that she’s reached a point of no return to her old self. Now, Myop isn’t necessarily scared of the body, but she does get scared when she realizes the nature of the death and the evil behind it. While plucking another flower nearby, she notices a ring in the earth. “It was the rotted remains of a noose, now blending benignly into the soil. Around an overhanging limb of a great spreading oak was another piece” (Walker). At this moment, Myop’s eyes are opened to the evils of the world, as she realized this man was lynched. Walker’s use of imagery contrasts the earthly soil and the magnificent great spreading oak to the brutality of the rotted remains of the noose, an image that is identity altering to young, innocent Myop. With this realization, “Myop laid down her flowers. And summer was over” (Walker). Walker uses these last few sentences of the poem to show the sudden and forever change in Myop. Her laying down her flowers signifies her loss of innocence by not being interested in the beauty around her and the simple things that children cherish. The line, “and summer was over” is the last nail in the coffin. The reader knows
...ots her memory, the blossoms her dreams, and the branches her vision. After each unsuccessful marriage, she waits for the springtime pollen to be sprinkled over her life once again. Even after Tea Cake's death, she has a garden of her own to sit and revel in.
The setting of a novel aids in the portrayal of the central theme of the work. Without a specific place and social environment, the characters are just there, with no reason behind any of their actions. The Age of Influence centers around the Old New York society during the 1870’s. Most of the characters are wealthy upper class citizens with a strict code to follow. The protagonist, Newland Archer, lives in a constant state of fear of being excluded from society for his actions. Archer’s character is affected by standard New York conventions as well as the pressure to uphold his place in society, both of which add to Wharton’s theme of dissatisfaction.
They are many ways to approach a conflict in order to find a resolution. For minimal actions people are often willing to talk about it, but for major actions the solutions to those problems are usually acted out by violence thus, the creation of war. For many centuries countries have been going to war over disagreements. However, it is not any type of disagreements; it is usually about the political beliefs of certain countries. In fact, World War 1 was caused by the disagreements of the European countries in power which were Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary. Some of the countries had a difference of opinion concerning political values on ruling the country. Some were in favour of nationalism, imperialism, or militarism which caused physical conflict and created war. (Duffy) Many soldiers had to go fight to represent their country and make them proud. Many novels have been written to explain to the people how the war had a psychological impact on the soldiers who participated in The Great War, but in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque he explains the true depth of war by implicating his knowledge of his days as a German soldier fighting on the western front. Remarque’s awful war experience influenced him to write his novel to show the realistic brutality of war by graphic violence, the emotional impacts on the privates as well as the impact of nationalism by the Germans.
Critical Essays on Alice Walker. Ed. By Ikenna Dieke. Greenwood Press, Westpoint, Connecticut, London, 1999
If we read The Color Purple with 'gender on the agenda' as required we can identify how the form contributes to the impact of the narrative. The Color Purple is a story that unfolds through the writing and exchange of letters. Opening with the line 'You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy.' A warning issued by the abusive 'father' (later and importantly discovered to be step-father) of the central character Celie who indeed pours out her secret to God and later to her sister Nettie about her life and her pain.
Loss of Innocence is a classic theme in literature. Protagonists are forced into situations where they must sacrifice their goodness/what they believe. It is a theme that runs through both “ Young Goodman Brown” and “ The Most Dangerous Game”, though each of them happen in a different way.
Loss of Innocence in Rite of Passage by Sharon Olds A rite of passage is defined as a ceremony marking a significant transition or an important event or achievement, both regarded as having great meaning in the lives of individuals. In Sharon Olds' moving poem "Rite of Passage", these definitions are illustrated in the lives of a mother and her seven-year-old son. The seriousness and significance of these events are represented in the author's tone, which undergoes many of its own changes as the poem progresses. From its title, the tone of the poem is already set as serious, and we know there will be a significant event taking place in someone's life. As earlier stated, a rite of passage is an important ceremony or a life-changing event.
Throughout history the concept of innocence in literature has been a topic in which author’s have held an obsession with. According to Harold Bloom, the loss of innocence has played a large role in western literature since the Enlightenment when man was said to be initially good and then corrupted only by his institutions. (Bloom 6) The institution in which Bloom speaks of is nothing more then society. Society is what is believed to be the cause for the loss of innocence in children. Bloom has stated that a return to the childhood mindset would eliminate the social problems in which people suffer. This is unerringly why the cause of many physiological problems can be traced back to a problem or unsettlement in one’s childhood. (Bloom 7) The history of innocence continues further back in history as it is said that the first encounter of loss of innocence or “original sin” was from Adam and Eve when they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. (Bloom 7) These historical events and ideas are what influence the works of authors from the 19th century to modern day.
At the age of 9, a little girl is counting down the days until her next birthday because double digits are a big deal. Now she is 12 and is still counting the days until she can call herself a teenager. For years people cannot wait to be another year older… until they actually become older. As people grow up they accept that maturing means taking on responsibilities and adulthood. Having sleepovers and play-dates, taking naps, and climbing the monkey bars becomes taboo. The simplistic life of a child quickly changes into the dull reality of school and work. People will spend years wishing they were older; but when the time comes, they hope to go back to their innocence. In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger writes a stream of consciousness
Gender identities and gender relations are determined by the culture of a society. Culture makes gender roles meet certain inescapable beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and obligations. Gender politics camouflaged by cultural norms and governed by patriarchal interests and manifested in cultural practices like female genital mutilation, make the life of women difficult and burdensome. Alice Walker’s fifth novel Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) discusses a tabooed cultural practice called female genital mutilation, camouflaged by gender politics, that is used to subjugate women, to protect the interests of men. Female Genital Mutilation is a painful procedure considered to be a mark of true womanhood in certain cultures. The procedure
Walker uses the positive imagery of “The Flowers” at the beginning of the novel to set up a naïve, sweet world in which a gruesome appearance of the lynched victim turns out to a reasonably unexpected, shocking event that robs Myop of her innocence. The first half of the text focuses on Myop’s childlike innocence with sweet kinesthetic imagery of Myop feeling “good and warm in the sun” to hit specifically on Myop’s childlike inhibitions. In the same case, sweet and gentle visual imagery continues to play in the first few paragraphs of a happy agricultural lifestyle where “each day a golden surprise” and a ten year old girl like Myop could “skip lightly from her house to pigpen” and bounce “this way and that way”. Myop’s joyful rapping of the stick that goes “tat-de-ta-ta-ta” enables auditory imagery to play on a merry sort of onomatopoeia that goes strongly with Myop’s innocence. Imagery had little direct prepa...
In conclusion, both poems are clear on the perspectives of innocence and the perspectives of experience and while experience lifts the veil of innocence it does not erase the raw belief that there is some place or someone who may just be better or may just be holy in a harsh world that is covered by manmade innocence.
Loss of innocence can happen in many ways. Some losses are enormous and hugely impactful, like killing, while others are small and subtle like growing up. Innocence is lost in the most innocuous ways, most of which aren’t noticeable, which brings this paper to a closing question, something implied through both of these works; something to think about. Is every loss of innocence bad, or are they just stepping stones on the path to becoming an adult?
"She skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen". This shows how happy Myop is in this setting, we know she feels safe here, "She felt light and good in the warm sun" Her innocence produces an excitement to the reader as it gives the character and the text somewhere to go. We learn that Myop is ten and is African American, however Walker does not present the reader with clear facts but instead reveals it to us. " The stick clutched in her dark brown hand", from the information given she allows the reader to form a visual image of Myop. Walker also highlights the setting around Myop, playing on the character's senses.
Alice Walker was born in Eatonton on February 9, 1944. She is an African American novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, and activist. Walker has taught African American women's studies to college students at wellesley, the university of Massachusetts at Boston". She writes through various personal experiences, she described herself as "womanist" which means a woman who loves other woman and appreciate them. Walker writes through her feelings and the morals she has grown with. She writes about the black woman's struggle for spiritual wholeness and sexual, and political issues especially with black women's struggle for survival.