Karakteristik af Myop i 'The Flowers'

Myop is the protagonist of the short story and its only active character, as the narrative only follows her.

The name "Myop" likely derives from the Greek word "myopia," which means "nearsightedness." This suggests that Myop, like many children, is unable to perceive the world around her in all of its beauty and violence. However, when she finds the dead man and then sees the noose next to him, she realizes that the world is a dangerous and savage place. She loses her nearsightedness, but she also loses her innocence.

At the start of "The Flowers," Myop is an innocent, carefree child living in a post-Civil War world where many African Americans in the South are sharecroppers. Their jobs were difficult and did not yield much financial gain, and they also still had to deal with the racism of the world around them. It seems that Myop's parents, however, have protected her from this reality. She joyfully prances around the natural world and seems to have an almost idyllic childhood.

However, Myop goes farther than usual one day, and she comes across a decayed corpse. It is implied that the corpse was a man, a sharecropper, who was lynched, as there is a rotting noose at the scene as well. This discovery opens Myop's eyes to the tragedies and the dangers of the world from which she has been thus far protected. The end of the story states that the summer was over, which figuratively means that Myop has grown up as a result of her experience. She is no longer short-sighted and understands something about the world that she did not know at the start of "The Flowers."