Literary Elements In 'Marigolds' By Eugenia Collier

Eugenia Collier uses diction and imagery to create the voice of her narrator, Lizabeth, in her short story “Marigolds.” Lizabeth has a negative tone in the beginning of the story. The imagery she stated, “When I think of my hometown, all that I seem to remember is dust- the brown crumbly dust of late summer-arid, sterile dust that gets into the eyes and makes them water (Collier)...” proves that she is unhappy to be in that place. There are a lot of reasons why she is unhappy in that place and one of them is poverty. Lizabeth hinted that one of their struggles was poverty when she said “Poverty is a cage in which we all are trapped, and our hatred of it was still the vague, undirected restlessness of the zoo-bred flamingo who knows that nature created him to fly flee (Collier).” Lizabeth established the juxtaposition when she said, “And one other thing I remember, another incongruency of memory-a brilliant splash of sunny yellow against the dust-Miss Lottie’s marigolds (Collier).” She is stating that Miss Lottie’s marigolds were the only beautiful thing in that unsightly place. Those marigolds did not give her a pleasant feeling because she thought that they were too beautiful to exist in that kind of place. Miss Lottie was believed to be a witch when Lizabeth was young but she knows she is mature enough not believe in those things anymore. Their first encounter resulted in Lizabeth and her company destroying some of Miss Lottie’s marigolds and they left Miss Lottie and John Burke, her son, enraged. When she got home and went to her room hoping to rest after a long day, she overheard her parents talking. She heard her dad say, “ Twenty two years, Maybelle, twenty two years…and I got nothing for you, nothing, nothing (Collier).” She then realized that her father got fired from his job and was not taking it too well after what they have been through. Maybelle, Lizabeth’s mother, attempted to comfort her husband by saying, “Honey, you took good care of us when you had it. Ain’t nobody got nothing nowadays (Collier).” After a while of discussion Lizabeth’s father began to sob, loudly and painfully. At this point, LIzabeth is confused because she never heard a man cry before. She did not even know that men cry.

Poetic techniques displayed through the ideas, poetic features and style of the poet, reveal concepts which transcend time and place. In Gwen Harwood’s poem “the violets” her ability to interweave past and present emphasises the importance of memory in preserving ones journey though the universal experiences of growth, maturity and mortality. Similarly the poem “Mother who gave me life” demonstrates the memory of motherhood as a timeless quintessential part of the human condition. And lastly In Harwood’s “father and Child”, the connection between the father and son/daughter highlights that transformation throughout childhood is inevitable. Through the content and the language, the ways in which human experiences reveal concepts which

For this essay I aim to show the importance of memory and of remembering the past in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid’s Tale is a ‘speculative fiction’ first published in 1985 but set in the early 2000s. The novel was in response to changes in US politics with the emergence of Christian fundamentalism, the New Right. Atwood believed that society was going wrong and wrote this savage satire, similar to Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’, depicting a dystopia which she uses as a mirror to hold up to society. I will be focusing on the main character and narrator, Offred, “a handmaid who mingles memories of her life before the revolution with her rebellious activities under the new regime” (book group corner), as she

“Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild, With a faery, hand in hand. For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.”(W.B Yeats) Similar to what Yeats talks about in his poem, many people feel a sense of horror as they discover that the world is not the happy place they imagined it was when they were a child. When it becomes time for a child to shed his/her innocence and take on the responsibilities of adulthood, one wishes that he/she could just run away from it all, just like the human child in this quote by Yeats. The world is full of weeping and horrors, but an innocent person can do nothing to help. Innocence cannot see injustice through its closed eyes. That is why it

Many memories for young children involve a special individual who made specific events during their childhood, vividly stand out to them as adults. In “Tender Stranger” written by Phillip Lopate, a memory is told from the perspective of a young boy. He is on his way to school when he suddenly bumps into a lawyer on the street corner. In “Novella” written by Robert Hass, the memory is from a young girl who develops a friendship with an elderly gentleman who lives in a cabin deep in the woods. The young boy meets the lawyer on the busy sidewalk and never sees him again, while the young girl forms an extensive friendship as she and the elderly man visit often. The vivid childhood memories of these two relationships play a significant role in the character’s life, whether it was a short encounter or a long lasting friendship.

In the story Marigolds, by Eugenia Collier, the main character Lizabeth has conflicting emotions of her child and adult feelings as she goes through adolescence. Many teens today can relate to the indecision and inner conflict that can and does occur during this time of life. Many things spark the conflict, like her father's bitter despair about being in poverty, her brothers choice to taunt an old lady, and her decision to wreck the only beautiful thing in town, a garden of marigolds. Through the story, these conflicting emotion make her realize things about life, and that a person's ideas and views can be altered by experiences that occur during adolescence. The first example of an experience that Lizabeth goes through is when she hears her father crying in the middle of the night.

Change is never easy especially when you don’t realize it’s happening. Eugenia W. Collier's short story “Marigolds” is an excellent example featuring Miss Lottie, a positive woman who tries to overpower the ugliness by bringing colour in the grey times and planting marigolds. She faces daily struggles of being taunted by a bunch of bored kids including Lizabeth, an unbalanced teenager who is fighting her own battle inside. They use Miss Lottie as a source of entertainment by yelling dirty words, mocking her age and many other shameful actions. In this short story Colliers shows that you shouldn’t be selfish and hurt anyone just for the point of your entertainment.

Lizzie had died and is now trying to “live” her “new life” in elsewhere; a place where people and animals go after they die. Gabrielle Zevin uses foreshadowing a lot because the main character lizzie is a recently dead character and is always thinking about life back on earth. Lizzie always remembers family traditions around the holidays, her favorite class; science and her best friend; Zoey. Lizzie also has flashbacks and memories about little things like ordering pizza every thursday night for dinner with her family. “ Liz remembers the time that she had spotted a sea green cashmere sweater that was the exact color of her father’s eyes.

When the point of view bounces back from person to person, it shows the person true feelings & how they are thinking. The author uses flashbacks from different people’s point of view. The flashbacks describes the dramatic change of how the characters (mostly Lutie), lives and sees her position in society.

In the book Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard, Mare, the main character brings memory moments up to express her conflict. In the book, Mare is running away from the palace guards and when she gets caught she remembers some hard times in her life with her brothers. It says “I’m on the porch, watching as Mom says goodbye to my brother Bree. She weeps, holding onto him tightly…( 75)” Mare is remembering the time when her and her family had to say goodbye to her brother before he was going to the war. This is a conflict in her family because her brothers don’t have an option to go to war and they may not return. Also in the book Mare remembers her family and the problems that are going on back at her home. It says “It engulfs me in darkness, until

The story starts with the narrator trying to remember all about Ligeia. The narrator is trying to remember the first time they met, her full name, and how she became his first wife. Then the story progresses to tell the reader that Ligeia is dead, and the narrator is grieving for his wife. Her love and beauty had a big impact on his life, making it hard for the narrator to see past all of this and to remember her every detail. He only remembers her looks and nothing more. Later, he

For this essay I aim to show the importance of memory and of remembering the past in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid’s Tale is a ‘speculative fiction’ first published in 1985 but set in the early 2000s. The novel was in response to changes in US politics with the emergence of Christian fundamentalism, the New Right. Atwood believed that society was going wrong and wrote this savage satire, similar to Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’, depicting a dystopia which she uses as a mirror to hold up to society. I will be focusing on the main character and narrator, Offred, “a handmaid who mingles memories of her life before the revolution with her rebellious activities under the new regime” (book group corner), as she

"Remember those two beautiful elm trees out there?" Willy says. Willy loved to see green. He loved to watch the gardens grow and flourish, but specifically loved to remember the times when the roses bloomed. "Remember" Willy states, this subtle word gives the reader a reference to follow. This reference is to Willy's past time love. Willy remembers the good days; he remembers when there wasn't a bunch of tall buildings surrounding him.

During her visits to the Cemetery, Rue Bertin Poirée and Île Saint-Louis, Sophie Calle represents her performance as a mere image of her memory; however, Calle’s memory illustrates multiple representations of herself. Her memories however, are represented as reflections of her family life, relationships, her interest of cats, and also the memory of a missing girl who admired Calle’s work. The active representation in “Twenty Years Later” depicts how Sophie Calle perceives the past, in contrast to the present. For that reason, Peggy Phelan writes, “[t]he document of a performance then is only a spur to memory, an encouragement of memory to become present” (146), in relation to Calle’s ability to capture her memory from her past using sensory image in her documents. Sophie Calle therefore, represents her performance as a one time activity, which all she has left is her memory.

Unfortunate memories causes Miss Emily to be trapped in her memories and create a dreadful present for herself. In his short story “A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner illustrates that when an individual fears change and has an intense need for their lives to stay constant, suddenly has a traumatic shift in continuity,they may try to preserve a memory by recreating the stable situation, even if it is an event after the original trauma.