Imagery And Diction In Alice Walker's 'The Flowers'

The autobiography Black White and Jewish by Rebecca Walker is about her experiences growing up feeling split between two worlds. Rebecca Walker reminisces on her memories from childhood to high school being a “copper-colored” girl during the Civil Rights Era. Her parents married illegally against the interracial marriage laws that forbad them, however Rebecca was born after the laws were passed and still seen as an oddity to others. Her parents eventually get a divorce, leaving her in a lonely position when she realizes her life is drifting apart. Walker’s intends for her audience, biracial girls, to establish a relationship with her through the similarities they may have faced.

Layers of illusions are burned away and all Paul has left is reality. In Willa Cather’s tragic short story “Paul’s Case: A Study in Temperament,” the flowers capture the reality world Paul departs from. For instance, critic Sherry Crabtree asserts that the red carnation symbolizes Paul’s alienation from the world of Cordelia Street (Crabtree 206). Crabtree observes the patterns of how the flowers reveal Paul’s negative outlook of life. On the other hand, some critics claim that the flowers capture the fantasy world Paul envisions.

In the short story “The Flowers”, written by Alice Walker, the author tells a story of a simple 10 year old girl named Myop collecting flowers. While discovering the woods, she stumbled upon a mans corpse and upon further evaluation, that the man had been hanged. After realizing what had happened, she lays her flowers down out of respect and her “summer was over.” This story passes on a powerful but depressing theme , loss of innocence, through the literary elements point of view, surprise and irony.

First of all, one of the many things that reveal Dee to the audience, is the characterization of her. Dee is disobedient. “She’s dead.” Wangero said. “I couldn’t bear it any longer being named after the people who oppress me.”

The garden, like Mary, is a neglected place; left uncared for, behind the imprisoning walls, it has become a tangle of thorns and briars. Nurture, care and love restore the beauty and freedom of this wilderness. In turn Mary, like the roses, blossoms into a natural and healthy child, and is able to share this healing experience with Colin, her cousin. Danielle Price in her article ‘Cultivating Mary: The Victorian Secret Garden’ proves that the similarities between Mary and the secret garden exist deeply in the text. When The Secret Garden opens, Mary is clearly a bad seed.

Alice Walker’s story “Roselily” is about hardships and doing what is best for the ones you love. The story elegantly shows Roselily’s emotions and thoughts about her marriage through diction and symbolism. These literary devices portray an unsure mother about her decision to marry a religious man for the sake of her children and her future. In the very beginning of the story Roselily describe herself as “dragging herself across the world” (A. Walker 266).

Everyday Use is a tale of differences of generations and of classes. The narrator is an older black woman living a country life on the farm who speaks proudly of both her daughters, Dee and Maggie. Dee was the educated, beautiful, and extroverted daughter that everyone loved, and Maggie was slower, scar by fire, and introverted that stayed by her mother’s side and on the farm. When Dee comes home for a visit with her mother and sister there are three items that attract her attention and she wants to acquire the churn top and the dasher to the butter churn and finally the family quilts.

In the short story “The Flowers”, Alice Walker sufficiently prepares the reader for the texts surprise ending while also displaying the gradual loss of Myop’s innocence. The author uses literary devices like imagery, setting, and diction to convey her overall theme of coming of age because of the awareness of society's behavior.     At the beguining of the story the author makes use of proper and necessary diction to create a euphoric and blissful aura. The character Myop “skipped lightly” while walker describes the harvests and how is causes “excited little tremors to run up her jaws.”. This is an introduction of the childlike innocence present in the main character.

We don't know what's really happening, and neither does poor Alice. Instead, we just have to wait to see. The author uses words that evoke images so that we may "see" what Alice sees: 1.) Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see

They say that education and adventure is the secret to long and happy life in John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemum” is the story of a young, but old women named Elisa whose life main purpose is to tend the garden and nothing more. The main theme of the story is that women are constricted as what they define themselves as. The character of Elisa is characterized as simple women in ranch gardening chrysanthemum’s the last flower to bloom before winter which symbolically means that she only has a limited time to bloom and be herself in society before the chrysanthemum’s die or get tossed out ironically the color of the flowers in the story where white and yellow the white being here purity and the yellow her joy and energy as a women. Towards

End of Summer. Most children dread the end of summer, you’re thrown into a new school year and you have to leave the fun of summer behind. For Myop, summer came to an abrupt end once she stumbled upon a horrific crime. In, “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, the last agonizing line demonstrates how the Myop’s childhood was ending and she is thrown into the real world where crime and death is evident.

The best part it is Carroll’s surreptitiousness; Alice is not crazy brave, or crazy smart, or crazy inquisitive, she is simply a little girl in a bizarre situation. By using a little girl in a bizarre situation, Alice does not stand out as a rebel. She goes against cultural norms without anyone noticing, she fits right it her time while still pushing the

By doing this it is hinting at the fact that Alice underwent a serious neurotic change and is looking at the world in a way no one else can

Throughout history, the use of characterization in literary pieces has gained a strong reputation as a method to transmit ideas to the reader and to reveal details about a character. Accordingly, this is the case of Everyday Use, a short story written by the American novelist Alice Walker. In this narrative, Ms. Walker utilizes direct/indirect characterization to show the attributes, qualities and moral disadvantages of the characters involved in the story. She also employs this literary device in order to establish differences between the analytical approaches towards African-American culture, and finally, she uses epiphanies in order to define the moments of the characters’ changes in the story.

Alice’s utter lack of knowledge about Looking-Glass World creates a complete culture clash between her and the “live flowers.” There is an air of confusion over the scene, especially during the interchange between Alice and the Daisies who pronounce that trees “bark” and “that’s why its branches are called boughs.” The flowers in this extract appear very supernatural and somewhat ethereal, the Tiger-lily is noted as “waving gracefully about in the wind.” Likewise, Carroll states how “the air seemed quite full of little shrill voices”, the utilisation of voice in this aspect makes the flowers seem rather unearthly, yet also highlights the sense of danger that they encompass.