Flowers In Alice Walker's The Flower

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The Significance of Flowers in Alice Walker’s “The Flower” For most people flowers represent love, beauty, and innocence; however Alice Walker wants the audience to establish a new perspective. The short story “The Flowers”, by Alice Walker is a story about the loss of innocence with the main character being a ten year old girl named Myop. Myop is gathering flowers in the woods behind her family’s property when her shoe becomes lodged in the broken skull of a man. Myop continues to gather the flowers when she notices the culprit of the mans death. Myop realizing the impact of this discover lays down her flowers never to be attained again (Walker 193-194). Alice Walker establishes the theme of coming of age through her use of setting, personification, …show more content…
In the beginning, the tone is light hearted with a hint of independence, which reinforces the innocence at the beginning. The narrator refers to the “ golden sunrise” and the “excited little tremors” which are positive adjectives that help establish a positive and innocence tone. Myop striving for independence “made her own path” which is a positive tone that shows that Myop believes she is ready to grow up. The upbeat tone continues even after she discovers the remains of a man with “large white teeth” which suggests her interest in the way he is described in detail. The upbeat and innocent tone only shifts when Myop discovers “a bit of shredded plowline” which subsequently she infers the purpose of the noose (Walker194). The narrator then states, “Myop laid down her flowers” which is significant because she is essentially laying down her innocence (Walker194). In addition, the last line of the story establishes that the summer is over which represented Myop’s coming of age and how her innocence was taken away because she understood the significance of the noose and what it was used for. The tone in the last line of the story is short and direct in showing that once a person loses their innocence it can never be regained. Therefore, Walker established the theme of coming of age through the shifts in tone displayed in the
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