Summary Of Marigolds By Eugenia Collier

Almost everyone has had a tantrum before, so there should be no surprise when it occurs in novels and short stories. Notable characters such as Lizabeth from the short story, “Marigolds”, by Eugenia Collier and Jem in To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee, impulsively burst with rage, unable to control their emotions because after all, they are just children. The fourteen-year-old African-American girl named Lizabeth along with her family struggle financially in an impoverished town during the Great Depression Era. Despite this, Lizabeth and her little brother enjoy childish acts especially annoying Miss Lottie, an elderly neighbor who cultivates Marigolds in her yard. Later in the novel, Lizabeth lets loose her emotions from her impoverishment and her parent’s financial problems out on these flowers by trampling on them. On the contrary, the elderly neighbor, Mrs. Dubose, in To Kill a Mockingbird is the one pestering Jem, Atticus Finch’s thirteen-year-old son, and not the other way around. The fact that Atticus defended a black man accused of rape displeases her; thus, Mrs. Dubose verbally attacks Jem by comparing his father to African-Americans.This is considered an insult during the Great Depression, the time period of the novel, as black people are viewed as lowly human beings. As a result, Jem takes personal offense to this and strikes back at Mrs. Dubose by ruining her camellias. Even though the physical destructions of the flowers are similar, Lizabeth and Jem’s reason behind it, the consequences and the process of maturation are different.

In the portion of the story where Elisa is talking to the "Fixer-Guy" who happens to pull down the road to her farm, Steinbeck shows Elisa's eagerness for attention and how she comes to the realization that there is a more exciting life outside the farm. In the “Fixer-Guy”, Elisa finds somebody who sees her as more than a housewife, someone who can appreciate her from an unbiased viewpoint. He offers his services and she turns him down saying “I tell you I have nothing like that for you to do.” At first she resists conversation with him. Then when he asks about her plants Steinbeck writes “The irritation and resistance melted from Elisa’s face.” “I raise them every year, bigger than anybody around here”, she boasts. She is now very eager to talk about her chrysanthemums. Elisa's face becomes "tight with eagerness" as she talks about them, as if they were her children. The vibes from her infatuation with these flowers are picked up by the old man, and there is an unspoken connection between these two perfect strangers as they have both chosen their own preoccupation in life, his being a passion of pots and hers a love of chrysanthemums. It is this connection that ignites the realization that she longs to break free from the everyday routine she calls life. This feeling is so strong that "her hand went out toward his legs in the greasy black trousers" as if to grasp a piece

I n the Story of an Hour, Kate Chopin gives us the feeling that Mrs. Mallard is unhappy in the by telling us “she was presses down by physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul” (227). We learn right off that Mrs. Mallard has a heart condition and should be treated tenderly. When she heard the news of her husbands death, she was at first upset and distraught. She did not begin to feel better until she had time to sit and think, with “the delicious breath of rain was in the air” (227). Mrs. Mallard felt lonely and did not know what to do with herself anymore. She realized that there would no longer be someone there with her to be there when her life expired. She often had the feeling that life was too long and that the end would never come for her. That was a sign that Mrs. Mallard was a lonely and isolated woman. She was sitting there in the chair when it came to her in a sudden rush. That she is “Free! Body and soul free” (228). Mrs. Mallard knew then that life was not short after all. Life was short and she should live it to the fullest. She is now free to do as she pleases. Mrs. Mallard has a feeling of freedom, freedom form the loneliness and isolation that she has felt for a very long time. She is now free to be herself

Closely observing a character gives the readers a chance to truly understand them , their thoughts and their points points of views. The actions that Lizabeth takes are things that need to be closely examined to comprehend the complexity of Lizabeth’s behaviors. Lizabeth, the protagonist from the short story Marigolds by Eugenia Collier portrays unique characteristics such as being resilient, addled and compassionate.

In ‘Nettles’, after the accident with his son falling in the bed of nettles, the father “slashed in fury” and acted quickly at the nettles to try and get rid of them to prevent his son from being hurt again. However, the father knows that this attempt to get rid of the bed of nettles is pointless as the bed of nettles will only grow back again in the future. This is understandable as it shows that every parent wants to prevent their child from being hurt in any way possible, and will do anything to prevent it. This also helps for the reader to become more involved with the poems, the characters and the characters emotions and feelings and it helps for the reader to become more sympathetic towards the characters.

At this stage of the story, Lizabeth and the other kids are preparing to destroy Miss Lottie’s marigolds for the first time. She describes the marigolds as she says, “For some perverse reason, we children hated those marigolds. They interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place; they were too beautiful; they said too much that we could not understand, they did not make sense.”(231-232) This quote says that Lizabeth and the other children did not like nor understand Miss Lottie’s marigolds. They also thought it interfered with the sadness and how barren the place was. This goes back to where the marigolds are the out thing out, and represent the one last good thing in a bad

The story goes on to explain the emotions that Mrs. Mallard goes through when she is in her room alone, going over the news she had just received. This is the part of the story when the conflict turns from outward to in; a conflict with the character against the situation to a conflict between the character and herself, or the character and her emotions. The passage; “ She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under the breath: free, free, free,” possesses beautiful imagery that brings the reader into the emotional conflict Mrs. Mallard is experiencing. (Chopin)

Throughout the story, Eugenia Collier uses the actions and words of young Lizabeth to highlight the confusion of adolescence before and after destroying Mrs. Lottie’s marigolds. Lizabeth's bewilderment is first revealed when the young children decide to pester Miss Lottie. Lizabeth is reluctant to "gather pebbles from the dusty ground," but Joey's taunting convinces her to put aside her newfound maturity and to descend into childishness (Collier 111). Collier is showing the reader how the young often respond to confusion by acting out. Lizabeth doesn't know what to do, so she acts immaturely. In addition, Collier reveals adolescence to be mysterious. After the taunting incident, Lizabeth becomes moody and is caught between two worlds.

She had only been in the house for a week, and most of her improvements had nothing to do with the garden. She painted the rooms, put curtains in the windows, found a new lock for the front door. It was an old house as far as maintenance went: it had been one of those catalog houses installed in the neighborhood along with ten others in the fifties, and its three subsequent owners seemed to have done the bare minimum in terms of renovation. The last hadn’t even touched the yard, which meant Cinderella and the daisies faced a wild jungle of overgrown grass, weedy flower beds, and sprouting, bushy side plants. And all Cinderella had for weaponry is a spade.

From his window Giovanni sees approaching the doctor’s daughter “beautiful as the day, and with a bloom so deep and vivid that one shade more would have been too much.” Her abilities are exceptional because it is apparent to Giovanni that “she handled and inhaled the odor of several of the plants which her father had most sedulously avoided.” Beatrice exhibits an especially close relationship to the purple gem plant, which Rappaccini is too fearful of tending anymore: ``Yes, my sister, my splendour, it shall be Beatrice's task to nurse and serve thee; and thou shalt reward her with thy kisses and perfumed breath, which to her is as the breath of life.''  That a girl of extrodinary beauty should show such affection to an extremely noxious and evil plant furthers the irony in the tale.

It was at this point that Kate Chopin helped the reader to get a true sense of what Mrs. Mallard was going through. She starts sobbing and mourning then goes to her room to be by herself. Just like any normal person would do she went into her room to grieve and think of what her life will be like going forward. While reflecting on what was to come she came to the realization that she was free. Free? Mrs. Mallard realized there will be no more men and women oppressing each other. She became overjoyed from the simple fact that she was finally free. Over the next few days she continuously ponders what the future holds and comes to the conclusion that she will cry at the funeral, if only as a formality.

Joseph’s little brother, Benjamin, is sick, but his mother refuses to take him to the hospital. Instead, she gets the a nurse to stay at home with them. Because Joseph is upset with his brothers illness, he goes to his Uncle, and his uncle takes him to a quiet, secret waterfall in the Prospect Park. One of Joseph’s aunts, Lena, is leaving Brooklyn to join a Jewish Removal society, and she gives her property, that Golda gave her, to Joseph’s other aunt, Zelda. Lizzie Kaplan, the real estate agent, moves in with the Michtoms’ because without Golda, there is no one else to help and take care of her, so Joseph's mother, Rosa, takes her in. A boy on Hancock Street named Jacob suffers from permanent brain damage, so he has trouble acting like everybody

As much confidence as she had, she also has weaknesses that brought down her character and her emotions were a big part of her strengths as well as her weakness. Going out of her way to find her husband that she loved dear, she was blinded by the facts of maybe the man had let her go and lost all interest in her or having searched for twenty-five years and finally finding him and he does not remember her. Liza Jane is a confident woman but she forced herself to stay in the past and not move on in her bright future after slavery. Her love for a man who possibly had forgotten about her still ran on for the twenty-five years and finally come to find him and not realize it, it was a weakness that brought down her character and also placed a weight

Chopin uses common household features as a metaphor for Mrs. Mallard’s exclusion from the outside world. When she first learns of Brently’s death, Louise looks out an open window into an open square. Next, Chopin chooses to use treetops a quiver with new spring life as the first thing Louise sees prior to having her revelation, with a description of the delicious breath of rain in the air. Spring, of course is when things grow anew, and we know that water, as a a symbol cleanses ill pasts. This type of rich symbolism, returning to form, helped Chopin to make her story into simply “an hour”. As well, Chopin, makes use of parting clouds to provide Louise a blue sky, again, freedom like the

• When Maggie is abandoned by Pete, she goes back to her family but is humiliated by her mother in front of their neighbors. Jimmie also rejects her but only because he is afraid of the reaction of the people, choosing the social code of his neighborhood over his sister. • Mary becomes the subject of moral ambiguity once again when she finds out about her daughter’s death. The last line of the novel finds Mary forgiving Maggie for her so called unacceptable behavior.