Analyse af Alice Walkers novelle 'The Flowers'

In every culture you have a certain ritual that tells you that you are now a grown up. In Denmark for example, we confirm our Cristian beliefs, and in some other cultures you become a grown up when you have your first period. The girl in the story’s initiation is a lot different from the examples, and that is why, I have chosen to focus on that part of the story.

The story is called “The Flowers” and is written by Alice Walker in the third person by an omniscient narrator. It is very difficult to say when this story takes place it could be from 1863- 1973. I believe the author has wanted it to be like that because in that way, the story will always be relevant. The story takes place in the southern states of the USA that is very obvious, because the author talks about the harvesting of corn, cotton, peanuts and squash. The story spans over a few hours.

The setting of the story is rural; there are chickens, a pigpen, a hen house, fences, a spring and a smokehouse. And the young girl Myop’s sharecropper family lives in a cabin with "rusty boards," indicating that they are poor. The surroundings are all well known and familiar to the girl, and she usually sticks to the paths she has always taken with her mother, but today she follows her own road and bounces from side to side, and therefore she also has to look out for the things that might spoil her paradise or the snakes that could hide in the grass. In this first part of the story, the vocabulary is very positive, the sun is warm and the day is beautiful, but the author also warns you that something isn’t right. The description of Myop’s dark hand and the white bubbles disrupting the black soil, tells us that there is a great difference between being white and black, it is the authors way of telling us about racism. The peaceful environment also tells us about the girl’s personality and childhood. She is a very naive girl. She is oblivious to time and space, she only concentrates on a song, whose rhythm she beats on the fence by the pigpen. That indicates that she has had a very protected and healthy childhood. She has definitely been looked out for, and I don’t think she has been allowed to go anywhere without her family’s permission, but this day is different, and the last section of the story tells us that.