The Flowers

Alice Walker's short story "The Flowers", at first seems playful and innocent, then transitions to a harsh realization of what life may have to offer. Immediately the reader feels the playfulness and cheerfulness of the little girl right off the bat. For example, "It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from her hen house to the pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been as beautiful as these."(line 1), Walker puts great influence in her description of the playfulness Myop has to offer. Walker's vivid imagery locks the reader in from the first line. The first four paragraphs basically explain and show how much Myop enjoys her peaceful summer. "She felt light and good in the warm sun"(line 6), again Walker uses this peaceful and joyful vivid words to capture the innocence of this girl. However by the fourth paragraph the reader begins to see a more weary girl and skeptical of what she is doing. "She had often been as far before, but the strangeness of land made it not as pleasant as her usual haunts"(line 19), here is the real first sense that Myop may not be so innocent after all.
At this point in the story, Myop's attitude changes as well as Walker's use of innocent words. Walker begans to use workds like, "gloomy", "damp" and "strangeness" to present the fact thatt something is just not right. As the story moves on Myop finds herself "lodged in the broken ridge"(line 23). This is not completly the climax of the story yet this is a pause where the reader sees Myop's playfulness come to a halt, and when Myop ultimately stumbles upon the remains of a man. Walker's description of the man and his surrounding could suggest that lynching was the cause of his death. "Large white teeth, all of them cracked or broken...it was the rotted remains of a noose"(line 28), here Walker vividly depicts what Myop has found.
The reader gets a real sense of sorrow for this poor innocent girl. Myop may have been minding her own buisness and doing what she always had, but then,"Myop laid down her flowers"(line 34), showing a sign of releasing her inoccence. Walker not only shows how Myop gives up her innocence but how society had destroyed it. Walker uses the final line,"And the summer was over", to show the dramatic impact of death or racism can have on a child, and shows how society could care less.