Table of Contents
How does Lizabeth change throughout the story?
Lizabeth moves from innocence and ignorance to knowledge and compassion. Lizabeth recognizes that she needs to escape the environment in which she grew up. Lizabeth evolves from being a violent person to being a pacifist. Lizabeth learns that her parents are not happy, so she begins to behave better.
What change has taken place in Lizabeth’s feelings toward Miss Lottie?
After destroying the garden and seeing Miss Lottie’s broken spirit, Lizabeth realizes that she has done much more damage than to the marigolds. She understands why the flowers were so important to Miss Lottie, who had nothing else in her life except heartache and poverty.
How does Lizabeth feel after taunting Miss Lottie marigolds?
When they get to Miss Lottie’s house, Lizabeth feels torn between wanting to join in and thinking it was childish to taunt the old lady. By this time, Lizabeth is beginning to break from her childhood, because the childish games she once enjoyed are making her feel ashamed.
What does Lizabeth’s reaction to seeing Miss Lottie reveal about her?
Lizabeth’s reaction to seeing Miss Lottie reveals that Miss Lottie was just trying to create beauty in the middle of darkness and sadness. This also reveals that Lizabeth must have been bottling up her feelings and she just got to her breaking point.
What does it mean that this moment was also the end of innocence for Lizabeth?
Adult Lizabeth looks back on that moment with feelings of humiliation and reflects that while it was the end of her innocence, it was the beginning of her compassion. Her epiphany was that compassion and innocence cannot coexist within one person.
Why does Lizabeth see this moment as the end of her innocence?
What does Lizabeth mean at the end of the story?
Lizabeth’s rite of passage occurs when she realizes the marigolds symbolizes Miss Lottie’s little amount of happiness left in her life. Lizabeth says “I too have planted marigolds” at the end of the story because she is explaining that now she lives her life by trying to find hope in the most barren situations.
What was the most important lesson Lizabeth learned in Marigolds explain your answer and support it with evidence from the text?
As an adult, Lizabeth in “Marigolds” realizes that the moment she destroyed those marigolds marked the end of her childhood and of her innocence. This tells us that as an adult, she has realized the importance of creating beauty wherever possible.
Why does Elizabeth feel compassion for Miss Lottie?
When she comes face to face with Miss Lottie after destroying the marigolds, Elizabeth is able, for the first time, to perceive the damage that she has inflicted on another human being. By seeing “into the depths of another person,” she feels compassion for the first time.
What did Elizabeth think of Miss Lottie’s marigolds?
The only thing of beauty Miss Lottie can lay claim to is her marigolds. Yet, Elizabeth contends that the “warm and passionate and sun-golden” blossoms fit in poorly “with the crumbling decay” of the rest of Miss Lottie’s yard. Basically, Elizabeth thinks that the marigolds look out of place in Miss Lottie’s dismal-looking yard.
Why does Lizabeth cover her ears in marigolds?
Lizabeth later hears her father crying because he cannot provide for his family. She covers her ears because she does not want to face her father’s humanity. She has always seen him as strong and fun, and his vulnerability prompts her to take out her anger on Miss Lottie’s flowers.
Why did Elizabeth do the crazy dance in marigolds?
Elizabeth shows an acute awareness of the fact that she is somewhere between child and young woman. After initiating the “crazy dance” around Miss Lottie, she is aware that while the child in her is sulking, the young woman is feeling shame at what she has just done.