The Flowers

Flowers symbolize Myop’s childhood innocence, and the carrying and relinquishing of flowers is a motif representing Myop’s coming of age.

The blue flowers with velvety ridges symbolize the burgeoning strangeness of Myop’s environment as she moves further away from the familiar territory of her family home. The color blue is so striking in its beauty that it bears mention in the armful of various other plants that she collects. This color is not often found in nature. The presence of so many blue flowers foreshadows Myop’s encounter with the unnatural sight of the hanged man.

The sweetsuds bush is given a colloquial name that evinces Myop’s familiarity with her environment. The fact, however, that the fragrant buds are plucked too soon underscores the wastefulness of racial violence and the sudden reckoning that accompanies the loss of childhood innocence.

The wild pink rose startles not just because of its juxtaposition with the decapitated head of the hanged man but also because of its singularity: the specificity of its color and the fact that it stands alone in the dirt. Myop is attracted to its beauty, but she is soon acquainted with the violent symbol at its root, the noose, which repulses her and turns her delight at seeing the rose to unease.