The Flowers

by

Alice Walker

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Myop Character Analysis

Myop is a 10-year-old Black girl who lives with her family in a sharecropper cabin in the South. As a pre-adolescent, she is near the point of transition from childhood to young adulthood. What’s more, her name resonates with the word “myopia,” which refers to nearsightedness and is perhaps a good metaphorical way to describe her at the beginning of the story when she feels peaceful and happy. She is immersed in the world immediately surrounding her: the fragrant crops, the feel of the sun, the sounds of her own imagination. She is full of vitality and ease. She walks out to the woods, where she has been with her mother several times. She is curious and independent, creating her own path to get closer to some beautiful and fragrant flowers she hasn’t seen before. Her transformation begins after she finishes picking flowers and feels uneasy because her surroundings suddenly seem unpleasant and possibly ominous. She reveals her childhood naivety when she thinks that she will return to the peacefulness of the morning. When she walks into the corpse, her curiosity returns and she examines the body, the surroundings, and the remnants of the noose that was used to hang him. This traumatic event marks the end of Myop’s childhood by making her aware of the cultural traumas that will inevitably impact her life.

Myop Quotes in The Flowers

The The Flowers quotes below are all either spoken by Myop or refer to Myop. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Coming of Age and the Loss of Innocence Theme Icon
).
The Flowers Quotes

It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been so beautiful as these. The air held a keenness that made her nose twitch. The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash, made each day a golden surprise that caused excited little tremors to run up to her jaws.

Related Characters: Myop
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song, the stick clutched in her dark brown hand, and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment.

Turning her back on the rusty boards of her family’s sharecropper cabin, Myop walked along the fence till it ran into the stream made by the spring.

Related Characters: Myop
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

She had explored the woods behind the house many times. Often, in late autumn, her mother took her to gather nuts among the fallen leaves. Today she made her own path, bouncing this way and that way, vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes.

Related Characters: Myop, Mother
Related Symbols: The Woods
Page Number: 119-120
Explanation and Analysis:

She had often been as far before, but the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant as her usual haunts. It seemed gloomy in the little cove in which she found herself. The air was damp, the silence close and deep.

Myop began to circle back to the house, back to the peacefulness of the morning. It was then that she stepped smack into his eyes. Her heel became lodged in the broken ridge between brow and nose, and she reached down quickly, unafraid, to free herself. It was only when she saw his naked grin that she gave a little yelp of surprise.

Related Characters: Myop, The Dead Man
Related Symbols: The Corpse and Skull
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:

Myop gazed around the spot with interest. Very near where she’d stepped into the head was a wild pink rose. As she picked it to add to her bundle she noticed a raised mound, a ring, around the rose’s root. It was the rotted remains of a noose, a bit of shredding plowline, now blending benignly into the soil. Around an overhanging limb of a great spreading oak clung another piece. Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled—barely there—but spinning restlessly in the breeze. Myop laid down her flowers.

And the summer was over.

Related Characters: Myop, The Dead Man
Related Symbols: The Pink Rose, The Corpse and Skull
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Flowers LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Flowers PDF

Myop Quotes in The Flowers

The The Flowers quotes below are all either spoken by Myop or refer to Myop. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Coming of Age and the Loss of Innocence Theme Icon
).
The Flowers Quotes

It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been so beautiful as these. The air held a keenness that made her nose twitch. The harvesting of the corn and cotton, peanuts and squash, made each day a golden surprise that caused excited little tremors to run up to her jaws.

Related Characters: Myop
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song, the stick clutched in her dark brown hand, and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment.

Turning her back on the rusty boards of her family’s sharecropper cabin, Myop walked along the fence till it ran into the stream made by the spring.

Related Characters: Myop
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

She had explored the woods behind the house many times. Often, in late autumn, her mother took her to gather nuts among the fallen leaves. Today she made her own path, bouncing this way and that way, vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes.

Related Characters: Myop, Mother
Related Symbols: The Woods
Page Number: 119-120
Explanation and Analysis:

She had often been as far before, but the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant as her usual haunts. It seemed gloomy in the little cove in which she found herself. The air was damp, the silence close and deep.

Myop began to circle back to the house, back to the peacefulness of the morning. It was then that she stepped smack into his eyes. Her heel became lodged in the broken ridge between brow and nose, and she reached down quickly, unafraid, to free herself. It was only when she saw his naked grin that she gave a little yelp of surprise.

Related Characters: Myop, The Dead Man
Related Symbols: The Corpse and Skull
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:

Myop gazed around the spot with interest. Very near where she’d stepped into the head was a wild pink rose. As she picked it to add to her bundle she noticed a raised mound, a ring, around the rose’s root. It was the rotted remains of a noose, a bit of shredding plowline, now blending benignly into the soil. Around an overhanging limb of a great spreading oak clung another piece. Frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled—barely there—but spinning restlessly in the breeze. Myop laid down her flowers.

And the summer was over.

Related Characters: Myop, The Dead Man
Related Symbols: The Pink Rose, The Corpse and Skull
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis: