Compare and Contrast Essay: Marigolds vs. American History

When I was in 5th grade I remember doing something that probably wasn’t the smartest idea. One day me and my friend found that we could hit things really far with tennis racquets. This included tennis balls, foam baseballs, and even acorns. After seeing which of the objects could be hit the farthest, we decided to hit acorns with the tennis racquets. Our plan would have been fine if we didn’t decide to hit them towards the houses. we stopped and decided to pick it back up again and one of my parents ended up catching us. After I found out the price of window replacement I’m glad we didn’t hit any. From this, I learned not to mess around other people's houses or else it could cost a lot.  In The stories “Marigolds” written by Eugenia Collier, “American History” written by Judith Ortiz Cofer. The main characters are similar in the way that they learned from what happened to them, just as I learned the consequences that my actions could have had. In my opinion, you have to learn from your experiences, because if you never do, you’ll never actually end up learning anything about yourself, in return you won’t grow up and mature.

In the story Marigolds written by Eugenia Collier, the main character Lizabeth has a realization and learns from one of the mistakes she made. In this story the narrator tells us how Lizabeth and her friends would mess around with an old lady named Miss Lottie. The kids would mess with her flowers as they were seen as “too nice for the place they lived” (22). It’s later revealed in the story that Lizabeth’s father lost his job and Lizabeth overheard her dad crying. After hearing her father cry and going to mess up the Marigolds, she had realized that she did something wrong. Once Miss Lottie, the owner of the marigolds, came outside, Lizabeth had “stood there awkward and ashamed” (62). The main takeaway Lizabeth had taken from this was that “this was the ending of innocence” as well as “the beginning of compassion” (62). When Lizabeth saw Miss Lottie’s reaction, she knew she had done something wrong, Lizabeth ended up letting her anger get the best of her and in return led her to the realization that she was starting to mature as a person.

A similar thing happens in the story “American History” written by Judith Ortex Cofer. In this story the narrator describes the place where Elena lives as it plays a very important role in the story. Another thing included is the community around her as that plays an important role in the story as well. One of the details included was that Elena wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. During the story Elena met a boy named Eugene. Elena could tell that Eugene liked her and she ended up asking him to study with him. When Elena got to Eugene’s house, Eugene’s mother was rude towards Elena. Elena was told “Eugene doesn’t want to study with you, he is a smart boy” (33). At first Elena didn’t leave as she was in shock from what she was told and the lady went on to say “didn’t you hear what I said” (35). When Elena went home she came to the realization that she may never be a teacher. The reason for this was because she was a poor minority who lived in the projects of New Jersey. This was a bit more extreme from the last story, however Elena had still learned something from this.

Like both the characters in the stories I named, I also have an experience I learned from. Like I stated in my introduction. Me and my friends played a game where we would hit acorns with tennis racquets facing the houses. This wasn’t a good idea and we had some relatively close calls. Thankfully no windows were broken because if so I don’t know what we would have done since getting windows replaced can be pretty expensive and as a 5th grader I didn’t have that kind of money. If my parents never caught me and my friend I’m positive we would have broken a window. It’s not as big of a deal as the ones in the story since nothing was actually broken, but I still learnt that I probably shouldn’t do that as they can have big consequences for me and that isn’t something I would want.