“The Flowers,” by Alice Walker, is set during Reconstruction in the south, after the emancipation of slaves. Although during the first paragraph, the reader may question whether or not Myop is a slave because of her tending to the animals and harvesting crops, it is not until the second paragraph that Walker shows the reader the setting of the story and Myop’s background. Walker describes, “the stick clutched in her dark brown hand,” and “the rusty boards of her family’s sharecropper cabin.” Even though Myop is working hard and is still very poor, I would describe the tone of this story as jovial. Myop seems content with her chores; Walker says, “The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash, made each day a golden surprise that caused excited little tremors to run up her jaws.”
There is a transition in tone in the fifth paragraph. While earlier on in the story, there had been imagery of sun and familiarity; there is a sudden shift in tone, as Walker describes the woods, “It seemed gloomy in the little cove in which she found herself. The air was damp, the silence close and deep.” During the first half of the story, Myop had been content with her life of chores and living with her family in a rusty sharecroppers cabin. She was thankful to not be a slave and had an optimistic outlook. However, after she discovers the body of the dead man in the woods, her optimistic outlook is challenged.
Through this transition, Walker shows the reader that even though Myop and her family are not slaves, they still have hard times to face. Walker ends the story with describing the noose hanging from the tree above and saying “Myop laid down her flowers. And the summer was over.” Walker uses this final line as foreshadowing of the challenges that Myop and thousands of children raised during this time would face, and how it would be hard for their optimism to last.
