Category: The Flowers

“The Flowers” by Alice Ordinary could be a rude explanation written within the 1970’s. The Narrator focuses on Myop, a 10 rank grey African yankee clear United Nations likes to explore the step off during which she lives.

Myop decides to pass hidden/covered up in public distance from our Sharecropper cabin and passage (unable to be understood or broken through) depths (middle part) the (land area owned or controlled by someone) to non-native land wherever she discovers the rotten body of an African yankee man. Its work out Myop right away grows on each part/face and bang becomes clever of the bottom during which she lives. The being like other people depends on coordination and relevance is clearly connected with or related to the low-class and offensive of agreeable innocence.

The story itself uses (using physical things to show huge ideas or feelings) to show completely totally different parts of what went on at the time. Like flowers is used to go to innocence and purity within Myop. The wild pink flower used towards the tip is used as (using physical things to show huge ideas or feelings) “really on the edge of where she’d stepped into the highest was a wild pink rose”. The flower was sort of (physical issue that refers to a plan or emotion) sort issue, it shown (by using an object to represent a plan or emotion) the young and innocent Myop inside the center of a cold world full of violent/difficult truths. Parts of weather are used to describe a possible future event what is returning.

Alice Walker tells US relating to Myops trip through the woods. On the strategy she approaches things that show (by using a physical object to represent an idea or emotion) a deeper which hints. A symbolism is once the author uses Business partner in Nursing object or respect to add deeper meaning to a story. Three symbols which can be explained within the short story ¨Flowers¨ square measure are the short, modulated stick, the rope tied in a loop that gets tight around a person’s neck, and strange blue flowers.

With Myop innocence being stripped away from seeing a dead body is messed up and these things are still going on today. Many people see dead bodies daily and most are kids. They don’t know how to handle the bad (things that happen after other things) of a(rotting/becoming ruined/worsening) body. The loss of innocence, and it is explored through repeating ideas like death, violence.

The Author’s plan/purpose is to explore ways in which children come to lose their innocence when they are exposed to the (very simple/rough and rude) reality of existence. Note also that the author might also have had a hidden plan/purpose with the short story, related to violence against African-Americans. As we know, Alice Walker is a strong fight/fighter for African-American Rights. The fact that Myop from the story has dark skin and that the man was tall (a feature often connected with African-American men) and died hanged, maybe a hint of violence against AfricanAmericans during slavery.

Childhood innocence is a concept portrayed within writing, television, and movies. A statement of innocence, naivety, and freedom from worries. The short story “The Flowers” by Alice Walker weaves a tale of a beautiful summer day and a young girl named Myop. With positive and negative connotations, she creates moods throughout the story. In “The Flowers” Alice Walker uses diction and imagery to create different moods.

Positivity is something we associate with kindness, happiness, cheerfulness, etc. In the first half of the story, Myop enjoys the “golden surprise” that is the summer day. Myop collects flowers, as well as explores the land her family owns. Walker describes Myop as feeling “light and good”. She is portraying the perfect example of childhood naivety. She wanders around the land, and she picks flowers as she goes. She remembers going around with her mother and picking acorns. This half of the story seems bright, happy, and silly. Some words that seem to support this idea are velvety, sweet, and bubbles. It creates the picture of a young girl relishing her day in the beautiful sun, acting as if she had no cares in the world. Seemingly, positivity is a mood given in the first half of this story.

Negativity, often portrayed as sadness or gloom, rears its ugly head in the second half of the story. While Myop wanders farther into the forest, collecting her flowers. As she realizes that it’s time to go home, she starts to head back, and “stepped smack into his eyes”. She was unafraid, ready to dislodge her heel from whatever was holding her. She looks down, and realizes she has stepped into the skull of a man. Walker illuminates Myop’s innocence by portraying her as unconcerned, until she realizes the man had been hung. As Myop lays down her flowers, Walker dramatizes the girl’s loss of naivety with the words “summer was over”. The mood of this half of the story seems gloomy, with word choices such as rotted, broken, and silence. The words sculpt an image of a horrified young girl who has just been changed by the awfulness of the world. Overall, negativity presents itself as a strong concept in the second half.

The clash of positive and negative in this piece bring together the envisionment of Myop’s journey past childhood and moving slowly into adulthood. She is shown the horrors of the world, furthermore bringing up the realization that her never ending summer is now over. With both cheerful and gloomy scenes, Walker paints the perfect moods to go with this story of a young girl.

Children have a unique perspective of the world as they run around with their imaginations as they explore and learn new things. In the fictional piece, The Flowers by Alice Walker takes place at a Farmland where a little farm girl went out adventuring into the nearby field, on her way she picks up flowers and skips merely back home until one single step exposed her to how cruel mankind can be after discovering a carcass next to a noose indicating death by hanging relating to racism between the 1800s and 1930s. ‘The Flowers’ is about racism and how it can impact a child’s life, decisions, and behavior.

The fictional story The Flowers, takes place in a rural area, based from the story it can be inferred that the story takes place after slavery was abolished between the 1800s and the 1900s where both “sharecropper cabins” (and racial discrimination are more common during these time periods. Typically, dark-colored people will be living in sharecropper cabins and working on farmland, this helps with trying to understand the family’s background by ethnicity. In the fourth paragraph, the narrator mentioned that Myop “had explored the woods behind the house many times” (and that this time she “made her own path”. This shows the adventurous and creative side of Myop which is common in children. One mile away from her house is an area which she found to be gloomy, after she set back to return to “the peacefulness of the morning,” this shows that she was having a great morning before she came across a man who had been hanged by a noose on a tree for a long period of time. The encounter which she has had caused a change in her behavior, after understanding what had happened she lays down the bunch of flowers she had along with the wild pink rose. This indicates that this is the significant point of the story where Myop has witnessed a racist act and her life from then will not be the same “the summer was over”.

Children learn from household teaching, then followed by what is taught in schools and lastly from the actions of other adults outside learning environments. This means children learn or pick up from what they witness and will influence how they respond to events such as racial discrimination to another person. “By age 7, children develop racial permanency and around age 9 they start to identify and become more aware of what place their cultural group holds in society,” according to Dr. Spinks-Franklin, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician. Children who face discrimination against their race are also put under more stress, which can lead to deterioration of their mental and physical health according to Dr. Maria Trent, a professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Studies conducted by the Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice showed that mothers who have reported experiencing discrimination are more likely to have infants with low birth weights.

Therefore, the aim is to teach children the proper way of handling diversity and warning them about discrimination to one another in an attempt to create a future where children as adults can be more respectful to anyone, no matter their race.

As children mature, they become more conscious of racial and ethnic differences, and many sources of prejudice and discrimination they experience can influence them in negative ways. Individual discrimination has a higher level of negative impact on physical and emotional health, where repeated discrimination can lead to a chronic stressor and increase vulnerability to illnesses as to other forms of discrimination that may lead to wear and tear on the body. This is not only a problem with people from the past, but people of the future will be impacted by how racial discrimination and its effect on different communities. Children should be able to be adventurous, creative and maintain their innocent as long as they can, because once they are exposed to harsh conditions of the world their unique energy will fade away and will be constantly living in fear, which would strip them of their unique energy.

Texts and Human Experiences

Textual mechanisms are utilised by composers in attempt to mimic the social conformities which not only impede the individual’s strive for happiness but also the quintessential behaviourisms of that person through the manifestation of their own personal experiences, as a reflection of not only their contexts, but the inconsistencies, paradoxes and anomalies of individuals or the collectives they pertain to. The person is stripped of their individuality and thus is merely a representation of the societal expectations which are inflicted onto them. The textual integrity of the text delineates the effect in which it exhibits onto the corresponding audience of various ages and circumscribes the semblance of the person as a reflection of the sentiments of the human race as a whole. Hence, the role of texts in the exhibition of human qualities and emotions is imperative in not only justifying the motivations and behaviors of individuals but in the exertion of influence on the responder’s personal motivations and behaviours, which in turn affect their physical, emotional and metacognitive psychological experiences. In this tutorial, the dual texts, “The Flowers” from Alice Walker’s “In love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women” and Steve Cutts’ short film, “Happiness” will be the central focal points of how composers use textual mechanisms to not only illuminate the impact of their own experiences on those of their respective audiences but also explore the effects of refusal of racial conformity in the consolidation of the universal collective experience of the galvanization of the loss of childhood innocence, as well as the strive for happiness and fulfillment and purpose while conforming to an industrialised society in battling with ideas of existentialism.

Human Experiences

So, you may be wondering, what is a human experience?

Well, an experience is defined as a notion, event or episode which has an influential impact. So a human experience is any one that affects the person.

Experience= impact + effect

Human experiences, whether minor or more influential, are relative to the human nature as they have an impact on the nature of the person. However, human experiences may be collective or individual. When an experience is shaped by the collective an individual pertains to, they are simultaneously unified with their collective through that experience. Collective experiences, in the case of the proposed texts, are mandated by institutions or ideologies. The legal system in “The Flowers”, which forces society to adhere to segregation and discriminatory laws, inflicts on the way citizens view their African American counterparts. In “Happiness”, the workplace environment and the stigma surrounding it also exhibits this. However, when an experience is individualised, it is unique for every person, and is oftentimes shaped by past episodes or particular circumstances. This allows the person to seek autonomy and control their decisions without the influence of the collectives they belong to. In the case of “Happiness”, both the collective and individual experiences of the character are merged and therefore portray a paradox in the scene 1:39, through the use of a metaphor to represent materials as the concept of happiness. The rats depict the nature of the person through the gruesome fighting fot objects, delving into the idea that wishing for universal happiness is ideal, but only when it doesn’t compromise your own.

Human experiences are notions which are unequivocally present in all people, disregarding age or race. “The Flowers” by Alice Walker exhibits the extent to which the human experience of racial prejudice resonates to the preservation of childhood innocence of the most vulnerable. Through the intricate characterisation of the central character Myop, who is portrayed as a lively, carefree, African American girl born to a simple farm life, the audience gains insight into the context of the composer. Alice Walker, a woman who is known for her passion in raising awareness to the complexities African American women face in a modern day westernized society, bases most of her pieces on 19th century slave narratives and black folklore. Walker uses author surrogacy to reflect on her own experiences of facing prejudice, prior to the American Civil Rights movement, as a young girl. She too, was as carefree, until at the age of 8, when she was shot in the eye by her brother. This personal experience links directly to the naming of the main character. “Myop” derives from the root word, “myopic” which is defined as the inability to see far ahead, only seeing things that are short at hand. This not only contextually alludes to the experiences of the composer, but also gives insight into the naivety of most African American children at the time, who saw their alike being predisposed but did not truly understand why, as a result of their elder’s aims of preserving their innocence. We, as the audience, sympathise for the predisposed as they enocounter such tribulations, which allows us to reflect on the privileges we have in not having to face discrimination as such. In addition, the composer reflects on her own experiences through the fact that the protagonist is born to poor sharecroppers in rural Georgia in the 1840s. The audience is able to recognize the historical allusions of the text, leading to a more knowledgeable reading experience. The recurring motif of awareness of adversities facing African Americans predominantly shapes her style and metalanguage, protruding as mostly realistic genre of writing with aspects of utopia, or romanticism, to masque the gruesomeness of the horrific reality which is experienced. The use of non-linear storytelling opposes westernized ideals, alluding to the human experience of refusal of societal conformity, vivaciously intertwining elements of African forms of storytelling into the texts to represent cultural means of expression, evoking an emotional form the audience.

Foremostly, idyllic imagery is used to portray aspects of childhood innocence through the following:

“It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from hen house to pigeon to smokehouse that. The days had ever been as beautiful as these…each day a golden surprise”

The audience envisages the character is at a state of complete tranquility and dictates that the life she leads is that of pure innocence and naivety. Myop steers off the path her mother set out for her, to gather the flowers she never got to pick, “keeping an eye out for snakes”, an archetype used to indicate foreshadowing of events. The character we know as delicate and innocent is exhibiting the inevitable human experiences which are universally prevalent: rebellion and disobedience, symbolizing a change in the temperament of the child. The flowers she longs to pick symbolize not only her innocence, a recurring theme and experience in the text, but also the human experiences of the search for happiness and freedom.

However, the tone of the poem tarnishes as the audience is able to prognosticate an abominable turn of events when the girl decides to look for that happiness and freedom, which is transliterated into the idea that she is refusing to conform, despite unknowingly doing the opposite her entire life. As Myop proceeds outside the familiarity of the part of the woods she had “explored many times”, the skies begin to appear “gloomy” and the air thickens and becomes “damp”, the character, as a result of her choice to rebel, feels uneasy, and the audience is able to foretell adversity. This alleviates the emotional response of the audience, who are inquisitive of the preceding events. At the turn of evidence, upon the uncovering of the lynched man in the bushes, Myop experiences a sudden fall of innocence. The sudden confrontation of racial injustice to a young child gives insight into the lingering effects in which the discrimination inflicted by adults, who shape the world for children, has on forthcoming generations. The lynching of a black man portrays the consequential repercussions of the refusal to conform to societal norms in relation to the context of the time in which the text was composed.

This also links into the idea of being a warning sign to the younger generations who have this encounter with the lynched man, as a mechanism to deter the younger generations from refusing to conform to racial prejudice after seeing the consequences, hence, limiting their innocence to that of fear and anxiety. Despite the hostile encounter with the outside world, Myop grips on her flowers, that is, clinging onto her innocence which is no more. The notion of preservation of innocence is transformed into that of the corruption of the child. This illuminates a paradoxical notion where Myop, who was once at peace with the world, finds that it is a place far from serenity.

“And the summer was over…. Laid down her flowers” expresses the inevitable human experience of adulthood, which is prematurely exhibited in a young child, through the laying down of the flowers, a recurring motif throughout the text, as a symbol of the irreversible loss of innocence. Myop is melancholy as she now grieves for the death of her childhood, and paradoxically, returning to the same home which brought her happiness- but this time with inconsolable grief at the exposure of the real world, and the newfound unaccustomed idea of racism which stripped her of her innocence.

Happiness is allegorical

The comprehensive understanding of what constitutes a human is a question that will almost inexplicably never be answered. The human is affected by the world without even realizing it at times.. However, it is redundantly argued that not only do our past experiences shape our behaviours concurrently, but social conformities do as well. The text, “Happiness” by Steve Cutts is an eye-catching short film which aims to depict the behaviours of the human race in relation to those of rats. This analogical linguistic expression represents the human experiences of the pursuit of happiness, sense of purpose and self-fulfillment, through the depiction of what is most commonly known as “the rat race”, which is defined as a pointless pursuit in aims of achieving financial benefit in vain.

This is represented through the inability to achieve a work-life balance, whereby the work-oriented nature of modern society is satirically elucidated by the composer through the characterisation of the rat as one who is constantly disoriented. The main character, who is constantly chasing what he thinks will be a source of self-fulfillment, stumbles upon money which is the cause of an innumerable amount, of individuals being trapped within the confinements of a cycle of never-ending work. The globalization of work as a reflection of self-fulfillment mirrors issues which are deeply rooted into aspects of society. Cutts is commonly known for portraying aspects of society such as this in a satirical manner in all of his major works, critically judging controversial issues faced by individuals of the modern day.

Portrayed by various messages on billboard such as the Nike ad “get to work faster”, the audience is reminded of the irony associated with the paradoxical expression which is portrayed in relation to the delay of trains due to overpopulation, thus affecting the speed of transportation to work. However, the intent of the composer is not to represent overpopulation, but the impeccable effect of work on the modem day individual as a reflection of conformity to an industrialised society which is driven by materialism, and the strenuous effects it exhibits. The pursuit to happiness, sense of purpose and personal fulfillment is confined to the restrictions of a money driven society whereby one may experience an existential crisis in a never-ending cycle of achieving nothing.

The composer reiterates the main focal point of the person through the exoneration of the recurring motif of happiness, which is not only the name of the film itself but is displayed on billboards throughout the entirety of the short film. However, this refers to the materialization of the term for commercial purposes, as a reflection of the modernized societal views. How does the composer exhibit this? Cutts illustrates the overwhelmingly populated subway whereby all passengers are striving to go to the same destination, which, as portrayed by the train in 0:31 as “nowhere”. Tying to the motif of happiness, the idea that happiness is never to be acquired is transliterated on to the responder as a foreshadow of the purpose of the film. This is further displayed in 1:07, as happiness is said to be “sold out”.

Despite the attempt to create a lively atmosphere through intricate detailing of the recurring motif, as well as vivid imagery, the facial expressions of the rats indicate otherwise. However, the composer uses humour, as exhibited in the billboards in 1:12 to ease the overwhelming emotions of sensory overload experienced by the audience as a result of the excessive detailing. The human experience of happiness, however, is portrayed to be only confined to commercialism. Through the shift in tone and colour from 1:30 to 1:32, the rats are depicted as dull and lifeless until they are provided with materialistic sources of happiness, which causes them to regain their colour. Later on, they are portrayed as vivacious creates who fight each other for materialistic possessions, thus inferring to the audience of the idea to which lengths individuals may go to in order to achieve such fulfillment and happiness. In addition, the allusion to the profoundly common experiences of addiction, through the reference of alcohol and drug addiction in particular, also depict the lengths to which humans may go, to acquire happiness. The artificial sources of happiness are used as euphemisms to hide the fact through these humans will never be completely happy. The rat does not stop at one bottle of alcohol, nor one “happy” pill, but rather consumes so much that he is in a state of lack of self – control and depression.

This is inconsistent with the common experience of the text. The short film ends with the rat, alongside his collective, as being trapped which finally establishes the toxicity of conformity as a motivation behind the never-ending entrapment of work, which is ironically the cause of unhappiness for the individual. Through this, the responder is able to reflect on their own personal lives, and whether conformity of industrialised social norms is impeding their pursuit of happiness and fulfillment of a sense of purpose. As a result, they gain insight into the perspective of the author in regards to existentialism as being confined to conformities.

Composers, using textual mechanisms depict the impact of conformity as notions of control of individuals in the restriction of pursuing happiness and thus inflicting on the individuality of their persona. Through the exploration of the texts, Happiness by Steve Cutts and The Flowers by Alice Walker, the responder is able to gain insight into differing aspects of the same form of subjugation inflicted on the person by societal pressures.

There are major events or experiences that you can go through that will play an important part in adulthood. In the story “The Flowers” the author Alice Walker showed this by using the time period of which there was racial discrimination towards the African Americans. A moment in this story that changed the main character Myop is when she discovered a dead man in the woods. It wasn’t just any man it was one of her own kind, a black man. This discovery caused Myop to lose her innocence and childhood. Also, it caused Myop to realize that there is much darker and racist stuff in the world.

At the beginning of the story, Myop is characterized as joyful and excited to adventure the new world. In the story, while myop is just adventuring the outside world it says “it seemed To Myop as she skipped lightly from hen house to pig pen, to smokehouse that the days had never been as beautiful as these.” (Walker). The phrase skipped lightly in this quote shows the excitement in Myop as she was just walking around and admiring the day. Also, Myop was characterized as a very adventures child and loved to explore new things in the outside world. In the story it says “ today she made her own path, bouncing this way and that way, vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes.” (Walker). The phrase ”bouncing this way and that way” in this quote introduces how not only is myop an animated child, she is also exploring the outside world and discovering new surroundings.

Towards the middle of the story, a huge event causes Myop not only to scare her for life but causes her to lose her innocence and childhood. While Myop was adventuring the outside world she ran into something very disturbing for a child her age and race. She discovered a black man that had been murdered and hung by most likely a group of white men. In the story, it says ” it was only when she saw his naked grin that she gave a little yelp of surprise.” (Walker). This quote not only shows the disturbing image that Myop had just seen. But also introduces the point in the story when Myop’s joy had turned into fear. This story was also told in the time period of the 1800s which had been when discrimination was most likely a big deal to a lot of people. Not only was the man that had just been murdered black Myop herself was a young black girl. After Myop had seen this man, it says ”Myop laid her flowers down.” this quote is a huge symbol to this story. It introduces the fact that Myop had just lost her innocence and childhood.

Innocence versus the disturbing and horrifying truth of reality. Sadly innocence loses. After reading ‘The Flowers’ by Alice Walker and ‘Dirge For a Saturday Night’ Kathleen Sutton the reader gets a taste of the macabre tone of Racism. Although, the poem ‘Dirge For a Saturday Night’ was a disturbing piece of art it cant compare to short story, ‘The Flowers’. The short story has such a emotional appeal to all age groups, its easy to comprehend,and the diction and tone are so well written that you can feel yourself in the story visualizing these things.

First off, for a article of writing to have a macabre tone it has to be disturbing and horrifying because of involvement with or depiction of death and injury. I agree that the poem does express these things; However, the diction they use to express the dark depiction of death and injury is not as striking compared to the amount of figurative language in the short story. for example the short story says ‘an armful of strange blue flowers with velvety ridges and a sweet suds bush full of the brown, fragrant buds. This diction shows the flowers as beautiful and peaceful but also strange. The section this is found in shows a shift from the usual flowers and the familiarity of the flowers she saw before to the new unique flowers she is experancing for the first time. The allegory of this is the idea of gaining new knowledge. The knowledge is a key factor to the loss of innocence of the child surrounding the story. Her losing her innocent view on the world as a black child in a racist world can cause the story to be disturbing. The author of this story connects the most crude punishment to a black being,lynching, to the innocence and beauty of a rose. The connection is so disturbing and sinister and the fact a young black girl experiences the hate of the world and the murder of her people but is lead to this by the exicitement of pureness and beauty is a horrifying sicking depiction of death.

Furthermore, poems can be very opinionated as in interpatation. Poems are great to show ones inner thought process and reasoning skills; consequentially, this can lead to Macabre tone to not show as easily in this form of literature. For example, in the poem it says ”cord around the throat”. Some would view this as talking about suicide ,but on the other hand some see this as lynching a form of punishment that led to death for African Americans. to view this one way over the other can cause the view of the entire main idea to changes. So the best effective way to portray this would have to be through the short story. for an example the short story says ‘ She felt light and good in the warm sun. She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song, the stick clutched in her dark brown hand, and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment” it is easy to infer that the girl is happy;to infer that the girl is anything but happy would be hard to find something to support that claim due to the diction and how easy it is to interpate the writing.

Everyone can relate to the short story. This is easy to be proved because everyone was once innocent. In a non spirtual way everyone once was pure. Everyone had that one thing that changed there innocence. As a new being in the world you have no clue how hateful and sick people can be due to lack of knowledge. a virgin is no longer pure once they have sexual interactions with another. A human is no longer pure once they experience injustice or emotional pain or a act of hate. in the short story it says ”Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled–barely there–but spinning restlessly in the breeze. Myop laid down her flowers.” this quote shows the little girl laying down her innocence and letting herself become knowledgeable. Once she has seen the horrid death of her people due to hate and power abuse she drops all of those pure beautiful innocent flowers and allows her self to enter reality. People lose their blinders from perfection to flaws. People learn about things and the more people learn the more they escape from the world of good to the world of damage.

In conclusion, after reading both the poem and the short story, the short story is the most showing of the macabre tone. It is relateable to everyone, there is clear interpertation, and the diction used is very beneficial to show the macabre mood of the story. The story’s sense of lost innocence and racism and how it involves murder and death but yet also beauty and pureness is a perfect effective way to get the tone across