Marigolds

“Nor did we wait for hard work and thrift to pay off in shining success as the American Dream promised, for we knew better than that, too.”

This passage reflects the hypocrisy within the economic system that has beaten down the community where Lizabeth lives. While white people might expect the “American Dream” to pay off, the Black community deals with both economic hardship and racism and knows that there are innumerable barriers in place to keep them from reaching the promised “American Dream.” In this landscape, the Great Depression is an added insult to already difficult lives.

“Poverty was the cage in which we were all trapped, and our hatred of it was still the vague, undirected restlessness of the zoo-bred flamingo who knows instinctually that nature created it to be free.”

This passage reflects the theme of The Eroding Impact of Poverty, where the children are slowly becoming aware that their circumstances are bleak. This awakening to an unfair reality—in particular, the reality of being a poor Black child during the Great Depression—implies a slow loss of innocence.

“I think now that we must have made a tragicomic spectacle, five or six kids of different ages, each of us clad in only one garment—the girls in faded dresses that were too long or too short, the boys in patchy pants, their sweaty brown chests gleaming in the hot sun. A little cloud of dust followed our thin legs and bare feet as we tramped over the barren land.”

This imagery used here creates a level of realism that allows Eugenia Collier to portray a clearer picture of the poverty endured by the children. The narrator also points out the absurdity of the image of the children running through yards in such a mismatch of clothes. The impact of poverty is shown in the ill-fitted hand-me-down clothes on thin, barefooted children. The narrator notes that they must have looked funny, but beyond any humorous element is the tragedy of poor children who do not have enough of anything.

“Miss Lottie’s marigolds were perhaps the strangest part of the picture. Certainly they did not fit in with the crumbling decay of the rest of her yard. Beyond the dusty brown yard, in front of the sorry gray house, rose suddenly and shockingly a dazzling strip of bright blossoms, clumped together in enormous mounds, warm and passionate and sun-golden.”

The marigolds are juxtaposed with the dilapidated yard and house and are given a sensory-rich description that reinforces their importance. The symbolic meaning of the marigolds is illustrated through their description, which is in stark contrast to their bleak surroundings. The word choice shows why the flowers attract attention: They are “warm,” “bright,” and “passionate,” while everything else is “crumbling,” “sorry,” and “dusty.”

“For some perverse reason, we children hated those marigolds. They interfered with the perfect ugliness of the place; they were too beautiful; they said too much that we could not understand; they did not make sense.”

This passage pushes toward that deeper understanding and uneasiness that Coming of Age brings. Living in poverty and ugliness, the children cannot reconcile an attempt to add beauty to their dismal surroundings, and they are too young to work through their feelings and find compassion for Miss Lottie. This quote lays the groundwork for why Lizabeth chooses to destroy the marigolds in her fit of anger.

“I did not join in the merriment when the kids gathered again under the oak in our bare yard. Suddenly I was ashamed, and I did not like being ashamed. The child in me sulked and said it was all in fun, but the woman in me flinched at the thought of the malicious attack that I had led.”

Despite a “successful” game against Miss Lottie, Lizabeth is unhappy. This internal conflict within Lizabeth reveals the rift between her and the other children, which foreshadows her move from child to woman by the end of the story.

“‘God damn Mr. Ellis’ coat! And God damn his money! You think I want white folks’ leavings? God damn, Maybelle’—and suddenly he sobbed, loudly, and painfully, and cried into the dark night. I had never heard a man cry before.”

The story uses dialogue sparingly, so hearing Lizabeth’s father’s rage and anguish in his own words is particularly painful and humanizing. It also reinforces the pain it causes Lizabeth because she must finally contend with how her family’s economic circumstances have hurt and humiliated her father. This internal shift from ignorance to understanding foreshadows the climax between Miss Lottie and Lizabeth.

“The world had lost its boundary lines. My mother, who was small and soft, was now the strength of the family; my father, who was the rock on which the family had been built, was sobbing like the tiniest child. […] I do not remember my thoughts, only a feeling of great bewilderment and fear.”

This passage propels the story to the climax because Lizabeth cannot reconcile her father’s brokenness and her mother’s strength. She witnesses how much unemployment has broken her father’s sense of self, but she cannot reconcile her parents’ role reversal. This confusion and fear motivates her desire to lash out and destroy something.

“I had indeed lost my mind, for all that summer’s smoldering emotions swelled in me and burst—the great need for my mother who was never there, the hopelessness of our poverty and degradation, the bewilderment of being neither child nor woman and yet both at once, the fear unleashed by my father’s tears. And these feelings combined in one great impulse toward destruction.”

This passage reflects the grown narrator’s understanding of what she was experiencing as an angry and scared child. Now a woman, she is able to break down the layered injustices that lead her to an impulsive and destructive act against an old woman: the loss of a needed parent, the shame of poverty, the fear of seeing a parent break down, and being too young to cope with all of it. These pressures lead to the “smoldering emotions” that feed her burst of rage.

“My gaze lifted to the swollen legs, the age-distorted body clad in a tight cotton night dress, and then the shadowed Indian face surrounded by stubby white hair. And there was no rage in the face now, now that the garden was destroyed and there was nothing any longer to be protected.”

These lines represent a distinct shift in the narrative tone toward a much more detailed physical description of Miss Lottie. The old woman is seen through the lens of maturity—a maturity born suddenly from Lizabeth’s destructive act. Miss Lottie is what she has always been in the story—old, unhealthy, and poor—but this is the first moment when Lizabeth sees that. She also has lost her fight because the girl has destroyed the only beauty she could create, her beloved marigolds.

“And that was the moment when childhood faded and womanhood began. That violent, crazy act was the last act of childhood.”

This passage underscores the Coming of Age that Lizabeth has undergone in the story. The terms “crazy” and “violent” are significant because they emphasize how sudden and uncomfortable Lizabeth’s transition from childhood to womanhood has been.

“For as I gazed at the immobile face with the weary eyes, I gazed upon a kind of reality which is hidden to childhood. The witch was no longer a witch but only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility.”

These lines indicate that the veil of childhood, which had prevented her from seeing Miss Lottie as she actually was, is gone. In its place, Lizabeth can see the way the world has ravaged Miss Lottie physically and emotionally and feels compassion for her attempts at Creating Beauty in Ugliness.

“Innocence involves an unseeing acceptance of things at face value, an ignorance of the area below the surface. In that humiliating moment I looked beyond myself and into the depths of another person. This was the beginning of compassion, and one cannot have both compassion and innocence.”

This passage links to the theme of Coming of Age because Lizabeth transitions from accepting things as they are without question to compassion and the pain that can come with it. While this transition into adulthood and greater connection with others is presented as inevitable, it is also shown to be painful and “humiliating” for Lizabeth, who must grapple with being the reason Miss Lottie is hurt.