Marigolds: Poverty and Small Ghetto Town Essay Example

After reading the story “Marigolds”, a question popped up. This question was why did Lizabeth destroy Miss Lottie’s marigolds. Lizabeth, as a child, lived in a small ghetto town with dust covering mostly everything. The only color she could remember besides brown was the “brilliant splash of sunny yellow against the dust-Miss Lottie’s marigolds” (Collier, p.124). One day, in the middle of the night, she goes over to Miss Lottie’s shack and destroys the flowers. Lizabeth lost control over herself that day because of three reasons. First reason is that she misses her mother who is never home because she has to work so much. Second reason is that she is going through that time in life when a teenager figures out who they truly are inside and grow in to an adult. The third reason is that she is tired of the poverty and having to live in the ghetto. This story takes place during the Depression, when finding work was nearly impossible. Even without the Depression, African Americans had a hard time trying to find a job. Lizabeth and her family were African Americans, living in a poverty stricken community made up of broken down houses and shacks. While Lizabeth’s mother went to work every morning, her father would go out searching for work. It was routine for her mother to go to work early and come home late. It was also routine for her father to go out early searching for work and come home in time for dinner still without a job. Lizabeth would still be sleeping when her mother woke up and be in bed by time she came home. The only thing she ever saw of her mother was the food she provided the family with. Lizabeth had a “great need for [her] mother who was never there” (Collier P.129). Missing her mother so much caused her to unleash emotions that made her destroy the flowers. A girl growing up to become a woman needs a woman to teach her how to become one. Lizabeth barely had a mother to teach her how to grow up to become a woman and was scared about doing it on