The Man Who Loved Flowers

King uses the story’s setting to establish The Joy of Young Love and The Brutality of Love Lost. Springtime in New York City evokes the beauty and promise of young love. King employs a third-person omniscient narrator, so readers view the young man at a distance, as through the eyes of passersby. From the old to the young, everyone perceives the protagonist’s appearance and demeanor through the lens of young love. The older people he encounters experience a feeling of Nostalgia, longing for what once was and remembering their own youths. Young people are similarly enthralled by the young man’s outward appearance: The officer stops traffic for the protagonist, seeing his own “dreamy expression on the young man’s face” (Paragraph 34), and two girls giggle and clutch themselves, smitten by his lovestruck aura. However, as day turns to night, the narrative moves toward brutality and a climactic murder scene as the protagonist’s actions reveal a soul longing for reprieve.  

Even at the end of the text, after the young man commits murder, a middle-age woman notes his smile and the bounce in his step, thinking to herself, “if there was anything more beautiful than springtime, it was young love” (Paragraph 54). The only hint at a shift in this nostalgic perspective is a man pitching nickels who tells the young man that he can buy his wedding ring cheap “cuz [he] don’t want it no more” (Paragraph 26). The comment hints at the unseen darkness, emphasizing the distance between how the young man is outwardly perceived by others and the thoughts and impulses he is experiencing in his own mind.  

While readers possess a clear picture of onlookers’ insights and emotions about the young man, there is very little insight initially into the nameless young man. His namelessness suggests he is an everyman figure, meant to represent the universality of love’s impact on humanity—with both positive and disturbing possibilities. The young man’s appearance encapsulates the fervor with which individuals seek a deep connection with another human in order to feel complete. Described as “beautiful,” like the springtime environment around him, “a bounce in his step and […] half-smile on his lips” (Paragraph 4), these details combine with hints of interiority, such as the young man’s desire to see “[Norma’s] eyes light up with surprise and joy” (Paragraph 7), in order to misdirect the reader into taking the young man at face value. The flowers, a primary symbol in the story, offer a clue to the reality of the situation: King’s alliterative description highlights how the vendor is careful to preserve the flowers’ beauty for as long as possible, as he “snipped the stems a little, spritzed them with water, and wrapped them in a large conical spill” (Paragraph 28). His actions reflect not the freshness of young love, but how the young man is trying to preserve Norma’s love through acts of violence.

King also hints at the young man’s darker truth through foreshadowing. A radio on the old man’s flower cart details a body pulled from the river, a serial killer, a drug war, and a global war. However, no one, including the young man, notices these violent images because “none of it seemed real, none of it seemed to matter” (Paragraph 5), suggesting how easy it is to ignore dangerous or difficult truths in favor of fantasy. As the news fades to background noise, the young man pauses, and as he touches something in his pocket, he looks “puzzled, lonely, almost haunted” (Paragraph 6), foreshadowing a darkness still unknown to the reader. King also describes happenings on the street that “impinge” on the young man's joy, all of which foreshadow the plot twist and corresponding shift in mood. King offers family-oriented images of a mother with a baby, little girls jumping rope and singing about love, and women standing and talking about their pregnancies. While innocent on their own, these scenes encroach on the young man’s reverie, suggesting that these images upset him somehow—possibly because he did not have children with Norma, and as readers later discover, never will.

This light, open imagery gives way to dark and narrow images, tracing the shift from a romantic spring evening to brutal violence. Earlier on the protagonist’s jaunt, the air is “soft and beautiful, the sky […] darkening by slow degrees from blue to the calm and lovely violet of dusk” (Paragraph 1). Here, King paints the beginnings of an evening that the radio announcer calls “[f]air and mild…perfect for a little rooftop stargazing” (Paragraph 29). The comment ironically still indicates the soft and romantic light of early evening that is made for young love. However, when the young man turns down a street, getting closer to where he will meet Norma, it is “a little darker”(Paragraph 35). Significantly, the young man chooses a “narrow lane” (Paragraph 36) that traps the darkness and will soon trap his victim.

As King moves toward the climax of the story, it is this darkness that makes the young man briefly question Norma’s identity. However, the fading light also cloaks him, allowing him to kill once he is rejected. The setting symbolizes the protagonist’s mourning and 10 years of loss that have culminated in his serial murders. As he “back[s] away from the dark shadow sprawled on the cobblestone” and exits the lane, the narrator observes that it is “full dark now” (Paragraph 49). The reference refers to the fading light of the day and also the all-consuming darkness of the young man’s soul, now made clear to the reader as well.

King’s story depends on a slow burn, meaning a structurally long, misdirecting lead-up to the climactic and dramatic mood shift. In the beginning, the young man is almost outside of the narrative as onlookers set a scene of nostalgia and hope for the young lovers. Besides the dialogue from characters who speak to the young man, readers don’t gather much from the omniscient narrator regarding the young man’s emotions. However, King sets up an almost ritualistic journey—one that is later revealed to have happened five other times. While everyone else is living in the moment, the young man is introspective, oblivious to those watching him. Only as the protagonist reaches the dark lane do readers gain access to his thoughts. During his meeting with and murder of a young woman, King shows the fragmented and pained thinking of a young man experiencing love as obsession, grief, and a will to do harm, rather than the hopeful possibility others perceive.