The Flowers By Alice Walker Analysis

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Forgive But Don’t Forget
Alice Walker (the author of The Flowers) is known for being a civil rights activist, and a women's rights activist. So it’s really no surprise that she would write about a rough time in history for African Americans, where racism was very popular and horrible throughout America. She wrote a powerful short story titled “The Flowers”, about a little girl named Myop, who’s around ten or so is going about her day. About in the middle of her day she wanders into the woods where she comes across the remains of someone’s dead body. She is not scared of the body or freaked out, but instead she gathers flowers for the body. This story makes it clear that she wrote this based on the historical criticism lens. The overall message of the story is the past will be behind them, all the racism, violence and murder are left in the past. Also now the future is bright and better for all African Americans. Lastly it’s about how never forget what happened, but to move on from it.
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She tries to make her audience understand that the past will be left in the past and you must forgive and forget, when she suggests that “she reached down quickly , unafraid, to free herself” (para. 6).When she said unafraid to free herself that’s further proving that they must free themselves from all the pain and hatred of everything before 1988. Also the dead body of the man in the woods symbolizes the past, meaning it's dead and gone. Alice does a really good job at portraying her message to her audience in this