Close Reading af 'The Flowers' af Alice Walker

In the short story, The Flowers, Myop starts of as an innocent, naïve, curious and happy 10-year-old African American girl that doesn’t carry any care in the world, to an experienced girl who is aware of the unease, torture and cruelty of the real world.

In the beginning, the narrator describes Myop “skipping lightly” and “feeling good in the warm sun” moving around her family’s farm. These statements create a light and happy mood. The narrator continues this mood by describing her humming and stating that “nothing existed for her but her song”. This shows that Myop doesn’t have a care in the world. As the story progresses, from her family’s sharecropping cabin to the woods, Myop starts to gather a bouquet of beautiful flowers while walking farther and farther away from the land she knew very well to the part of the forest where she would go with her mother, to a strange section, in which she has never been before. The narrator starts to create an unpleasant, gloomy, strange and uncomfortable atmosphere: “the air was damp, the silence close and deep”. Suddenly, in the new part of the forest, Myop stumbles across a dead man’s tortured body. Before knowing what her heel was stuck in, Myop “quickly and unafraid” reaches down to free herself. This indicates that she is shortsighted and innocent. (The name "Myop" is derived from the Greek word "myopia," which means "nearsightedness.") Moreover, when Myop sees the dead man’s “naked grin”, “she gave a little yelp of surprise”. This indicates that she is caring, as she didn’t react in a cold way to a dead body. It is also an event that opens a rift into a tortured and newly perceived form of reality from her point of view. After realizing that she stumbled upon a dead body, “Myop gazes around the spot with interest”. This broadcasts Myop’s curiosity and her transformation from being innocent, to being experienced. Myop then notices a wild pink rose next to the dead man and picks it up and adds it to her bouquet. Around the flower was the rotten remains of a noose. Then, Myop lays down all of her flowers on the body and leaves. At this point, Myop realizes how the man has died and feels guilty that she picked up his new life (suggesting that his soul got transferred into the flower), so she lays down all of the flowers as a sign of respect. Finally, the narrator ends the short story with the short sentence, “And the summer was over.” This suggests that Myop is full in her maturity and has grown older in mind from her experience.