A large, African American woman, Miss Lottie seems to the children to be at least one hundred years old and a complete mystery. Because they never see her anywhere but in her front yard, Lizabeth and the other children cannot fathom how she conducts those daily tasks that require human interaction.
How does she get her groceries? Does she ever go into town? She never has visitors and does not want anyone in her home. These little mysteries roused suspicion and great fear in the children when they were younger. And although as teens they no longer believe she holds witchlike powers, their fear of Miss Lottie remains.
Although she never bothers anyone, Lizabeth and the other children go out of their way to harass Miss Lottie. They especially despise her abundant display of marigolds. They interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place. His frustrations overwhelm him as he apologizes to Maybelle for not being the provider he is expected and wants to be.
It is a sound she has never heard before, and the sudden realization that the world is not as she thought it was—how it ought to be—proves too much for Lizabeth to bear. Children typically experience an event that in hindsight can be considered the bridge between childhood and adulthood. Lizabeth considers her younger brother more of a pain than anything, someone to accompany her in her summer boredom.
Joey is the child who comes up with the idea to throw stones at Miss Lottie and her marigolds while she tends to them. And when Lizabeth cannot sleep in the night and wants to escape her feelings of confusion and grief, it is Joey whose company she seeks to save her from her loneliness.
Though just three years younger than she, he is a version of how she once was: naive, childlike, accustomed to acting before thinking things through. She stills loves her marigolds at the end as she did in the beginning. Lizabeth catches her parents crying late at night about worries as if they will not be able to support for their children. What makes the narrator afraid? She has never heard her father cry, which scares her because it is unlike what she expects.
Her parents interaction reveals that her father though he is poor and jobless is a proud man and have self respect. He did not want to accept help from others. The Marigold flowers that Miss Lottie tends and grew in her front yard of her broken house symbolizes to see and accept the beauty even in worst conditions. Its themes include poverty, maturity and the relationship between innocence and compassion. At the end of the story, the narrator not only feels compassion for Miss Lottie, but as an adult, she feels her pain as well, the need for beauty, the passion for marigolds.
Hope this helped!
0コメント