OUTSTANDING ! "The Flower's" by Alice Walker critic comparison

This is my essay about a critic on "The Flower's" by Alice Walker  

Innocents in Childhood

Children present a type of innocents in their childhood. In the story, “The Flower’s” by Alice Walker Myop loses her innocents. The story begins with ten year old Myop enjoying the outdoors. She is the daughter of a sharecropper. She makes her way into the woods to explore. There is where she collects many ferns, leaves, and flowers. On her way back home, she stubbles upon a dead man. Her heel becomes stuck between the dead man’s bones. She examines what is left of him. She notices that his head is lying beside his body. She also sees his teeth and clothes that are in pieces. She drops her flowers after realizing the man had been lynched. The story ends by saying, “And the summer was over” (Walker 83). My reaction and Monica Loeb reaction to “The Flower’s” have some similarities and differences.

My reaction to the story was that Myop will never be the same. The theme is how easily innocents can be lost in children. In beginning of the story the tone is happy. This story was written way before the invention of video games and computers. The title and the time of year this story takes places are connected. Myop is enjoying her care-free summer. Walker states how Myop “was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song” (Walker 82). Children find enjoyment of being outside. It can be interpreted that Myop love going to the woods to find new treasures. The innocence’s of Myop can be felt many times throughout the story.  The tone of the story changes after she finds the dead man. Children at a young age are very intrigued about the world around them. Walker talks about how “Myop gazed around the spot with interest” (Walker 83). Young children tend to not fear the outside world and will ask a lot of questions.  Walker talks about how Myop was “unfraid” when she became stuck. Myop loses her innocents after finding the dead man.  After seeing the rope in the tree Myop infers that the man had died from being hung. Myop didn’t find the same joy of playing outside anymore. That is why the final line says, “And the summer was over” (83). Loeb notices a lot of things I had missed in her article of criticism.

Loeb thinks it was more than innocents lost in “The Flowers.” Loeb states that “The Flower’s” help teach Myop about racism. She says that “Myop’s ‘dark brown’ hand is a signal of her race” (Loeb 4). The differences races start to appear. She looks at how “Myop is watching the ‘white bubbles’ that in fact, ‘disrupt’ the very thin layers of black soil” (Loeb 4). This sets up Myop understanding of racism. She talks two different parts of the story. The first section occurs before noontime. In the beginning, there are many positive words used. The turning point is when Alice Walker uses the word “smack” to describe how Myop stubbles upon the man (Loeb 6). After noontime, the story changes tones. As she “curiously studies the victim” Myop notices “a pink rose” (Loeb 7). The use of “a pink rose” is a symbol of Myop being young child. She then talks about how Myop “lays down her flower in homage, as if putting the dead to rest” (Loeb 10). She understands how Myop life has changed. Myop now understands more of the world she lives in.

In conclusion, my reaction and Loeb have some similarities and differences. Loeb sees things that I didn’t see in the story. She makes looks differently at the story. It was more than Myop seeing a dead man she learned of racism that exists in the world.

Works Cited

Loeb, Monica. "Walker's The Flowers." Explicator 55.1 (1996): 60. Academic Search Complete Web. 8 July 2012.

Walker, Alice. The Flowers.” The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 9^th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s 2012. 84-90. Print.