Blog Post #3 "Flowers Prose Essay"

Alice Walker crafts a Biblical metaphor in her piece, “The Flowers,” implementing symbolic imagery and an abrupt tone shift to convey her message that life murders innocence.

The piece begins by constructing a setting that alludes to the Garden of Eden. Walker lists “Around the spring, where the family got drinking water, silver ferns and wildflowers grew along the shallow banks pigs rooted.” At this spring, Myop and her family live in harmony with nature—like Adam and Eve originally did in Eden. Myop’s entire life consists of this simple beauty. This allusion is crafted through the imagery in Walker’s sentences. 

But then, Myop turns her back on her Eden, similar to Eve’s famous behavior. As she turns her back and begins to explore the woods, the tone begins to shift. The strung-along, descriptive sentences of Eden are left behind. Walker begins to implement shorter syntax, leaning more towards a factual, grave tone. Her diction switches from the light theme from earlier, incorporating words like, “skipped lightly… beautiful… golden surprise, “ to darker words like, “gloomy… damp.. deep.” This is our first indication that Myop’s belief that the world is as simple and beautiful as the spring will soon end, just like the descriptive and “flowery” syntax did.

             
As Walker shifts tones and moves Myop out of Eden, she gives us a bit of symbolic foreshadowing. Going back to her Biblical motif, Walker says, “…vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes.” The reader realizes that snakes – like the Snake from Eden – are in Myop’s woods and is prepared to hear that Myop’s innocence might soon be stripped away, like Eve’s after she saw the snake.

             
Then, the tone shifts entirely. Walker uses primarily short syntax as she describes the corpse, saying, “He had been a tall man. From feet to neck covered a long space. His head lay beside him.” As Myop studies the man, her innocence begin to die, as did the strung-along sentences and as the corpse symbolizes.

            
 Still, Myop perseveres as she picks up a pink rose to add to her collection. But she sees the noose, a historical symbol of human cruelty, dating back to lynches in the South, further to witch hangings, and further still to persecutions of the saints—all examples of humans turning on each other unjustly. Myop sets eyes on the noose and, sensing its symbolism and history, her innocence cracks. She lays down her flowers, objects that represent beauty and natural simplicity – qualities linked to innocence. The apple has been eaten and the snake has won. Myop’s innocence is hung and the flowers left to rot right alongside the man.

             
The closing line, “And the summer was over,” alludes to the cultural assumption that summer is meant for young children to have fun. Spring is for the newly born – proven by Jesus’ resurrection occurring in the spring and the saying, ‘spring chicken’. Summer grows out of spring, as children grow out of their newborn phase and into an innocent, light-hearted one. When Myop’s innocence ends, so does her summer phase. As life’s days pass, innocence is gradually left behind.

REFLECTION:

After our prose essay seminar on Friday, I have to admit, I’m feeling pretty good.

Now, this does not mean, by anyone’s standard, that I got a 9. Or an 8. Or probably even a 7. But I can see those high scores in my future – albeit they are far away, blurry, and I have to squint to make out their features. But they’re there.

My biggest surprise was I caught the allusions. I was able to follow the underlying Biblical plot and even the foreshadowing Alice Walker included when she described that Myop was, “vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes.” I talked about the contrasts between what I called, “light and dark” diction and I touched upon the difference between the beginning syntax versus the end syntax.

But of course, I didn’t use the correct vocabulary. After our discussion on Friday, I now know that I should’ve used the terms, “gothic and pastoral imagery” and I should’ve mentioned that the passage followed a bildungsroman plot. 

The biggest thing I didn’t do quite adequately throughout my essay was bring the whole thing together. I talked about each facet of the story – the Biblical allusions, the diction contrasts, the flower and noose symbols. But I didn't quite connect them all together. I didn’t quite expand on the main idea of the passage—something that is definitely a vital part of my essay if I want to earn that 9. I need to work on connecting my dots to make the full picture.

I have to tie everything together. If I can do that and relate everything back to my thesis and the main idea of the piece, I'll be able to received higher scores on my essay.