Spoilers ahead *duh*

Read the story here:http://theliterarylink.com/flowers.html

This story hit DIFFERENT

 

Alice Walker writes about a child, Myop, who is the daughter of sharecroppers in post-slavery America. Yet, despite the reality of the world around her, Myop lives a beautiful, sheltered life that grants her the safety to play and be a child. Each day presents a new adventure until Myop’s innocence is taken when she literally steps on the rotting, abandoned corpse of a lynching victim. Walker concludes by showing us that Myop could do nothing but relinquish her innocence, now forced to carry the burden of reality. 

 

With such stark images and contrasts in tone throughout the passage, it is very easy to assume Alice Walker is talking about losing innocence because it is a lesson that we all can relate to.

 

I mean, we all know there was a day when you played with your Barbies, Transformers, Nintendogs, or your Wii for the last time. There is some exact instant in the timeline of your life that your eyes were opened to the rest of the world. Just like Myop laid down her flowers, you turned away from your toys and started to view the world through the lens of problems and responsibilities. This is the take that critics such as Monica Loeb discuss, claiming that the meaning of the text is the loss of innocence because “Myop is the sweet and beautiful rose, and when she lays down the rose, she is leaving her child-self behind.”

 

The only problem with that take is that all flowers die.

 

Not trying to a Debbie Downer but, people eventually grow up, innocence eventually is lost, there is nothing shocking about that. Either you put down the flowers or one day they shrivel up and die.

 

 I do not believe Alice Walker was just commenting on the inevitable. Instead, I believe Walker is seeking to use Myop’s loss of innocence as a way to comment on the toll of intersectionality.

 

When Myop stumbles across the man in the woods, she is alone in unfamiliar territory. The black man, who during that time especially, would be seen by Myop as a protector, the head of the house, or a source of comfort, is lying dead.  Myop’s innocence as a young girl is therefore threatened as she is faced with the stark truth that even her protectors are vulnerable and will falter. This idea is elaborated upon by critics such as Dolan Hubbard, a professor and chairperson of the Department of English and Language Arts at Morgan State University, who says in his book Society and Self in Alice Walker’s In Love and Trouble, “black females, like Myop must be apart of a group that includes males.” (Hubbard, 13)  This means that even though Myop does not appear to know the man, they are connected through shared social status and it can, therefore, be reasonably assumed she sees him as a familiar figure, amplifying the shock of the body.

 

But Myop still looks beyond the man to another flower, a symbol of innocence. In this way, Walker shows that a singular blow is not enough to cripple Myop’s innocence. 

 

(Wait for it…)

 

When Myops sees the ring of decayed rope around the rose, and the remains of the noose hanging from the tree, she faces a second blow. But this time, she is not losing her innocence as a young girl, she is losing her innocence as a young black girl. The fact that the dead man is a lynching victim, or was killed because of his race as a means to strike fear into others, means she loses her innocence in a new way. She now has to acknowledge the hatred that is directed at her because of something she has no control over from institutions older than she is.  

 

This combination is what causes Myop to lay down her flowers and turn her back on the ignorant bliss of her childhood. Once she is shown her vulnerability as a female and minority, two of her most defining characteristics, there is no way for her to ignore the realities of the world. Myop’s intersectionality creates a larger burden for her and therefore, her innocence once gone, is impossible to regain.

 

So why does this matter to the greater population? The short answer is like Loeb says, we all lose our innocence. It is so natural to connect with some element of Myop’s character. The longer and more involved answer starts with empathy. It’s good to have the opportunity to look through the lens of a certain group in order to expand on your own understanding of the world. Myop is devastated once confronted by the realities of her world, and our society today is filled with the same biases and social themes. By examining Myop’s reactions to these events it can provide insight that otherwise would go unsaid or misunderstood.