Commentary on Symbolism in The Flowers Essay

Flowers of Symbolism

Alice Walkers short story The Flowers is the underlying concept of a theory of her past events gained through her past involvements that she uses in her short story. The story is about a ten year old African American girl whose parents are sharecroppers in a less populated non-urban area in Georgia during a time of racial violence.

Thus, fear is a result of an act of prejudice of members of a race who think they are intrinsically superior to members of other races. The supreme effort one can make is to confront your fears. In Alice Walkers The Flowers, the most important element is the character Myop. She proceeds on a journey in spite of the risk of possible dangers which will bring her to an undesirable consequence of a productive insight of discrimination.

In Myops act of exploration she comes across an accidental event. The young Myop once being free from sin and moral wrong uses her discoveries in a positive way. She will help herself and the people around her who are no doubt influenced by the problem of racism existing at that time. Alice Walkers short story The Flowers is written in the 1970s. During this time the belief that one race is superior to all others is an immense point under dispute particularly against African Americans. Through the ability to form mental images of things, events and symbolism Walker supplies the reader with the results in a transformation of Myops childhood freedom from guile to her sudden consciousness of the problem she faced. Some people act can be shockingly cruel and inhumane. According to Fosters Terms A symbol is something that exist in itself while simultaneously also representing something else (xvi).

First a task performed in order to develop understanding of this is the author Alice Walkers use of light and dark. From the start this short story without doubt directs ones attention on Myops childhood lack of worldliness and being unsullied. Walker uses light to stress the significance of Myops innocence. The lighter term As she skipped lightly from henhouse to pigpen takes a darker turn. Myop has found herself in a not conversant area of interest the land that she encounters is an untroubled state. Myop anticipated reverting to the tranquil environment that she is use to. Thats when she finds the dead body of a man. In this part of the short story the reader finds words used by the author such as strange, damp, and gloomy. Myop removes the bits and pieces of rubbish from the mans face to see all of his white teeth cracked and broken.

Therefore, the purpose for this is to imply that what was once white and pure has been cracked and split and corrupted by this unpleasant brutal beating. Fosters Terms points out that violence is one of the personal and even intimate acts between human beings, but it can also be cultural and societal in its implications. It can be symbolic, thematic, biblical, Shakespearean, romantic, allegorical, transcendent, or metaphorical(88).

Equally important, Myop while observing her external circumstances and the conditions of the environment she finds all that is left of a noose, Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled-barely there-but spinning restlessly in the breeze. Another instance serving to illustrate is symbolism within the story is Alice Walkers use of seasons. Often in the late autumn, her mother took her to gather nuts among the fallen leaves. Autumn represents maturity and the beginning of something new in this manner being known as the season of change. Myop has changed from being a young innocent girl to a mature girl who is aware of the cruel ways of the world. Fosters Terms states change of season, rebirth, can be used to convey meaning: winter conveys death, spring conveys life, the beauty of summer or a summer night conveys passion(183). Something to be imitated is the issue of life, and death in the beginning of this short story, Myop is a young innocence girl who is full of life until she comes across this dead mans body which makes her no longer pure as she was before seeing death.

In addition it holds attention to the reader to notice that Myop unwittingly gathers flowers throughout the story. When she puts the flowers at the side of the dead man at the end of the story it is as though she is giving her childhood and innocence away. Fosters Terms points out symbolic action, although symbols are often expected to be objects or images rather than events or actions, action can also be symbolic. Symbolic action can hold meaning beyond its immediate context(105).

In the beginning Myop is only exposed to the good simple things that the world has to offer, in the medial part of this short story, Myop becomes aware of the promising positive, and negative outcomes of the reality of racism at that time. In conclusion the story is about racial violence and young Myops innocence being taken as a result of fear being an act of prejudice and how Myop deals with her fears of the good and evil of the world and how she takes a negative and turned it into a positive, so that she can help herself and others.