"The Flowers" and "Girl" Blog

After reading "The Flowers" by Alice Walker I was very interested in her style of writing.  I really enjoy readings that have lots of descriptive writing in them.  In "The Flowers" Walker starts out by describing a young girl who is enjoying her day just by adventuring around where she lives.  Walker says, "the air held a keenness that made her nose twitch.", this shows the girls excitement for her adventure.  Keenness means having or showing enthusiasm.  The descriptive words make it easy to visualize what Myop is doing throughout her day.  The first paragraph shows a visual description on Myop on a farm where she lives, "from hen house to pigpen" shows that she is on a farm.  The second paragraph goes into more description and clarifies that Myop is a young girl.  By using "tat-de-ta-ta-ta", Walker does a great job of onomatopoeia to show the young girl playing with the stick against the pigpen.

Further through the story Walker uses, "white bubbles" and "think black soil", which are somewhat opposites.  White is more of a happy positive color while black is more dark and negative.  She uses great description in talking about the flowers Myop holds in her arms.  From "strange blue flowers" to "velvety ridges" we are able to really see the colors and think of the texture.  Myop then decides to wonder further into the woods to explore.  She uses the word laden which means loaded.  This tells how many flowers she is caring in her hands.  When wondering into the the cove Walker uses "air was damp, the silence close and deep" to transition into a scary, dark, and strange place.  The transition from her loving fun home to the dark strange place lets you know something is about to happen.  When she steps on the skull she is surprised but then interested in the surroundings.  Walker says "wild pink rose", this line adds an interesting discussion.  Even though the rose is beautiful and shows hope, something awful has happened in its place representing death.  It seems ironic to have such a pretty thing right beside such a tragic event.  I feel from the reading the man had hung himself, since he is still there and no one has come across him.

The short story "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid was similar to "The Flowers" in that it was descriptive, but in a different way.  Kincaid describes things women do in everyday life or should know how to do before leaving home.  This story is written from a mom to her daughter.  The mom explains everything the daughter needs to know to live on her own.  From the reading you can tell the mom and daughter do not have a great relationship.  When the mom says, "on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming", clearly the mom and daughter do not have a positive relationship.  She feels her daughter is growing up to be something she should not be.  You could even take it as the daughter going against her mom in how she chooses her life to end up.  

Kincaid like Walker uses descriptive language by telling how to do everyday chores.  The daughter only have about ten words in the whole story which shows the mom is probably very strict and does not care what her daughter has to say.  By saying the same line about being a slut twice you get the effect of the bad relationship between the two.  During the last few lines of the story the mother says, "after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?", this furthers the the ideas that the mother and daughter have a hard time getting along.  The mother feels her daughter is not good enough and needs to know more about the world before she goes off and does her own thing.  Although the mother is very strict on her daughter I feel she only does it because she truly loves her and wants the best for her in everything she does.