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Marigolds Eugenia Collier Analysis

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Marigolds Eugenia Collier Analysis
In the story "Marigolds" by Eugenia Collier the theme that is conveyed is, hope can be hidden in the simplest places, & destroying it will not help anyone. The author is trying to tell you that even in the midst of darkness there may be a sliver of hope, even if it sticks out like a sore thumb in the midst of poverty, destroying it over, jealousy or because it seems misplaced, is not worth it. The marigolds represent the hope in the story, and the narrator represents the jealousy that overrides the hope. The narrator gets angry, when her and her family are struggling to just get through one day. And imagining that Ms.Lottie could have marigolds planted in her garden, in the poverty that the town was in, yet still she had marigolds, and she …show more content…
The narrator has a swirl of emotions and leaves the house, building on her jealousy for hope. She has no clue where she is going or what she is doing and then an idea hits her, she feels the urge to destroy the marigolds, to take away the hope they seems impossible and misplaced. One day the narrator stomps and smashes the marigolds the reality hits her, this had helped no one, destroying the hope of others, all that ruining the marigolds did was to bring the narrator to a realization ofher childish actions,that she was an adult, and should act like one. That she should create hope for herself and her family by being mature, sophisticated, and helping her parents, not destroy the hope that others had so dearly cared for. She realizes that the old lady had worked hard to nurture and grow her hope, her joy, her marigolds, that destroying them was wrong, and it brought no one else any hope, it just took someone's away. Her childish actions of rebellion had left her. The lines “ and they was the moment that childhood faded and womanhood began. The violent, crazy act was the last act of childhood. For as I gazed at the immobile face with sat and weary eyes, I gazed upon a kind of reality that is hidden to childhood. The witch was no longer a witch but only a lonely old woman who dared to create beauty in the midst so of ugliness and sterility. She had been born in squalor and lived in it all her life ow at the end of tent life she nothing but a falling down hut” communicate these

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