“ She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song”.
This openly tells the reader her young age, thus her lack of responsibility, which allowed her to skip around the fields aimlessly.
The structure of the short story is basic. Each paragraph is more or less six lines long. It is set out in traditional short story style, each part coming in short bursts. The layout of the text makes it easier to read, and interpretate. It allows the story to ‘flow’ at the correct pace. The structure adds to the build up of climax. The only anomaly is the very last line. The last line of the story is separate from the last paragraph and is a mere five words long.
“ And the summer was over”. The last line creates an impact, and displays the finality of the end. It physically displays the end of Myop’s childhood/innocence.
The language used in ‘The Flowers’ is simple and usually consists of facts about nature. It describes Myop picking various flowers. There could be a double meaning, in which flowers symbolise purity and innocence.
“ By twelve o’clock, her arms laden with sprigs of her findings…”
This shows Myop’s naivety and childhood prime, as picking flowers is considered a girlish and innocent type thing to do.
Weather references are also made in the story. There is also a change in mood between the first half and the second half of the story.
“The air held a keenness that made her nose twitch”. As opposed to “…The air was damp, the silence close and deep”.
It is clear of the contrast between the two descriptions of the surroundings. This is why I think that the weather references symbolise unexpected change. As weather predictions aren’t always correct, and it can change at any given time.
There are also examples of alliteration. “ …now blending benignly into the soil”.
The language used in the short story reflects and represents what is to come. It has dual meaning, and is used to set the atmosphere of the current time.
There are running themes throughout the story. Many are highlighted in the background and some are straightforward. One of the first themes are that Black-Americans were at the lower part of the social scale, often earning their money through agriculture. They lived in the south, which was an agricultural area and low key. Myop is described wondering around the field or farm and as a young child, the fact that she is by herself could maybe mean that her family is busy farming trying to make an earning. That is why she is unaccompanied and is probably brought up by her own means except for food and sleep which is allocated at home.
“ Turning on her back on the rusty boards of her family’s sharecropper cabin, Myop walked along the fence till it ran into the stream…”.
This shows that her family are probably not home and probably farming somewhere, as she is left to pass the day by herself. Other themes of unfairness where race is concerned. This can be picked up towards the end of the story when Myop finds the dead body of a black man who had been lynched. The word Lynched means ‘To execute without due process of law, especially to hang, as by a mob’. This is a clear example of how Black-Americans were treated. Without trial or question, they are accused and killed in front of an angry white mob. When Myop discovers the man, she is surprised to see how he has been left for dead.
“He had been a tall man….His head lay beside him…He’d had large white teeth…and very big bones. All his clothes had rotted away.”
The quotation coveys the brutality directed at Black-Americans, without cause or fault they were always treated as worthless, and undeserving of common courtesies.
‘The Flowers’ is one of the many short stories that discuss the struggles of black women in the 1930s written by Alice Walker. The story itself uses symbolism to show various aspects of what went on at the time. Such as flowers is used to prescribe innocence and purity within Myop. The wild pink flower used towards the end is used as symbolism.
“ Very near where she’d stepped into the head was a wild pink rose.”
The flower was a type of metaphor type factor, it symbolized the young and innocent Myop in the midst of a cold world full of brutal truths.
Elements of weather is used to foreshadow what is coming. This was an effective tool which set the mood of the coming paragraphs. Walker also uses ongoing themes of racism, culture and struggle throughout the story, which is present in many of her writings. Alice Walker’s writing is beautifully written, and urges the reader to read between the lines. There is a theme of duality throughout, which is tactfully used. ‘The Flowers’ is a thought provoking story which highlights the struggles of black women that lived in the U.S.A during the 30s and onwards.
