Question

How do you interpret the final line of “The Flowers” by Alice Walker? what is the effect of the brevity of that sentence?" Write a summary of this story.

Answer 1

The final line of "the flowers" by Alice Walker depicts the end of happiness and innocence of the protagonist in the story. This phrase shows how the innocence and happiness of the 10-year-old child comes to an end when she encounters a dead body.
The story revolves around a child - Myop, who at an age of 10 years, is a happy girl with enthusiasm and curiosity to learn new things. She leaves her home one day in the morning wandering around and passes through woods. She enters the woods and notices blue flowers that appeal to her. She moves ahead towards the flowers to get them and realizes that air has become gloomy and it is about to get dark. She turns back to her home and suddenly steps on a dead body of a man who was mutilated, violenty murdered. She notices that the man was quite tall, his teeth were broken, his clothes were rotten. She also notices a pink flower and when she tries to grab it sees a noose around it. On noticing more she finds a rope tied to the tree. The story then ends with her laying down the flowers, meaning ending her innocnce and happiness. This has changed her forever, she would never be the same child as she was before.