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The Flowers by Alice Walker Analysis.
The use of imagery is very important to attract readers to a story. However, the first technique used in this story is the narrative form. The narrative makes the reader want to know what will happen with the character in the story. There and then, the reader is attached to the story. Then, Alice Walker uses words to paint pictures in a very effective way. The reader can see this young girl, with dark brown hands, curious, innocent, and unaware of the evils of the world. Myop is adorable, and her innocence makes her so loveable, and this is where the emotions creep in. When things start getting bad like her wandering away from home and the suggestion that she may be lost, then the reader becomes nervous. She has wandered off too far beyond the usual place she goes, does that mean she is lost? What will happen? Will she find her way back? The reader gets scared with her and wants to know if she will be okay.
The author, Alice Walker, uses the name Myop figuratively to portray her innocence, her short-sightedness. There is a high possibility that the name Myop is a shortened form of the word myopathy or myopic, which comes from Myopia, a Latin word for short-sightedness. Myop is not “nearsighted” at the end, but at the beginning, she is that way. She is just ten years old, carefree, and innocent in a world filled with violence and one that African Americans had a difficult time sharecropping, were struggling with racism and poverty.
The flowers is a short story, but the descriptions and details used by the author make the message of lost innocence so profound. The author uses contrast to emphasize the themes of the story. In the beginning, Myop is happy, and the author uses flowery sentences with exciting details of the little girl and the beautiful environment. The narrative is full of happy descriptions all through, and the contrast appears in the last sentence, “And the summer was over” (Arikan) The author also uses symbolism. The word summer used in the end symbolizes the little girl’s innocence. The flowers she gathered all through the story were beautiful, as was her innocence and happiness.
My journey as a Literacy Mentor
Today I am a literacy activist, and I enjoy it a lot; it is what I have become. I have not always been a literacy activist at heart. At one point, I did not know what I wanted to become, at least while I was in college. When I was younger, I wanted to be a doctor, and then after a while, I wanted to be a pilot, then a musician until fellow students at my high school made fun of me when I was on stage doing a solo performance for art class. I really struggled with what I wanted to become because I had the idea that not having clear career goals in life would mean failure. I feared failure. Then I met Seaman, my college professor, who later became my mentor. I explained my confusion to her, and we ended up having this amazing talk discussing all the options I had. What I had not thought was the importance of having an emotional connection with what I wanted to do, something that would emotionally satisfy me, she suggested. I never thought about my career choices like that, I always thought about the glam and the respect the various titles generated. I wanted to be a doctor because my uncle Jake was always the hero at thanksgiving, I wanted to be a pilot because I saw this documentary of a colored woman that bet all odds to become a pilot in a field that was dominated by men, I wanted to be a musician for the popularity, I had no interest in the money then and only concentrated on being liked considering I was rather introverted in high school and craved acceptance. Professor Seaman urged me to find something that would emotionally satisfying me.
Beside teaching gender studies, Professor Seaman was a literacy mentor. I was not sure what that meant at first but she invited me to several of her activities and I quite enjoyed them. We attended these events where young people were using drama and literature, to give narrations and tell stories. My interest grew so fast, and I was looking forward to the next time she would invite me to her next mentoring activity. She was adored and appeared to know and enjoy what she did. I enjoyed it so much but was not ready to let her know because I thought she would think I was going against “thinking on my own, reflecting on myself and not following people.” I also thought this would be one of those cases where I followed something because it looked good on other people. But as I am writing this as a literacy mentor, it means I was right, and this was my path.
One thing I did not know was that I was a good storyteller. I had never explored this part of me until I met professor Seaman and got literacy mentoring myself. I composed a few stories that I could share at her events after I started frequenting. And before I knew I had become a literacy mentor myself.
I had this friend Jason who was a volunteer for this program that taught disadvantaged children part-time at some local church facilities. I became very keen on what they were doing, and the underprivileged children touched my heart. They also had this program where they got to showcase their talents, and I was offered the opportunity to introduce my activities as well. And that is how I started as a literacy mentor. Storytelling a feature that had disappeared from this modern society for a while now became the most interesting activity surpassing all the others, and the children were so eager for it. Older people stopped telling stories decades ago, and this looked like something new to these children apart from the bedtime stories that some of the parents told these kids when they were less than five years and now they were at an average age of ten. Also, these children were not that privileged enough to have parents who cared or had the time to read them bedside stories.
Ours was not a literacy program that just delivered books to the institution. If we were dealing with books, then each child would have the time to read and would have the chance to share their thoughts on the book with the rest of us, something like a book club. Various institutions started realizing what we were doing and approached me, asking if I would do the same for their institutions. These included mostly public schools with teachers that were concerned about the reading culture in their schools. Today I have 13 institutions that I visit several days in a week and make sure the programs are running okay. These programs include the various forms of literature, including storytelling, poetry, singing, and various forms of art in addition to reading.
The program has attracted 45 literacy mentors, including teachers of the various schools that volunteer for the roles. These mentors are responsible for over 200 children across the 13 institutions. We are working with children aged 12 and below and trying to grow this culture with the children as they become older. Although I enjoy visiting the mentors, the best part is working with the children one on one as the mentors do, I do not want to let the administrative role deny me what I actually love. The investment and relationship of volunteers and mentors have been amazing. They have taken the initiative to provide resources themselves or spread the word around and source for well-wishers. It is so fulfilling to find something that I find absolute happiness doing eventually.
Works Cited
Arıkan, Arda. “An ecocritical reading of flowers in Alice Walker’s ‘The Color Purple.'” International Journal of Human Sciences, 07/08/2015, Vol.12(2), p.1
