Lizabeth Character Analysis in Marigolds Essay Example

“And I remember, that year, a strange restlessness of body and of spirit, a feeling that something old and familiar was ending, and something unknown and therefore terrifying was beginning” (Collier 121). Lizabeth is the main character in a story, “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier where Lizabeth lives during the Great Depression and does not understand the world that she is living through. In the act of being cruel, Lizabeth attacks her neighbor, Miss Lottie, and destroys some of the marigolds in her garden. That night, she is awake in her bed and starts to hear her father cry. This makes her rage up with a bunch of emotions and causes her to go insane. She runs out of the house into Miss Lotties yard and destroys all the marigolds which Miss Lottie worked so hard on. Lizabeth changes from not understanding how Miss Lottie is  feeling and the cruelty of her actions to hearing her father cry late at night which causes her to understand why the marigolds are so important to her and how Miss. Lottie suffers from poverty like everyone else which reveals that no one can be cruel and innocent at the same time.

During the first attack, Lizabeth has no idea what the extent of her and Miss Lottie’s poverty is that they live through, and the awareness of her life and the outside world. “We children, of course, were only vaguely aware of the extent of our poverty”(120). Lizabeth has no knowledge of how bad she lives and how other people have it. Her poverty is so bad that she has no idea what a normal world is and what it is like to live normally. At the time of the first attack, she had no thoughts of her actions and that destroying Miss Lottie's marigolds is cruel. “Then I lost my head entirely, mad with the power of inciting rage, and ran out of the bushes in the storm of pebbles, straight toward Miss. Lottie” (124). At this time, Lizabeth was only worried about herself and not how her actions affected other people. She does not care what is going to happen to Miss Lottie and how important the marigolds are to her which shows the extent of her cruelty. Lizabth does not know the extent of her cruelty and how she affected other people and she does not know the poverty she lives in during the Great Depression.

After the first attack, Lizabeth begins to realize her mistake, which was the pain she inflicted on Miss Lottie, and feels guilty for what she has done and she realizes that she inflicts pain on others when she hears her father crying. “Suddenly I was ashamed, and I did not like being ashamed. The child in my sulked and said it was all fun, but the woman in me flinched at the thought of the malicious attack that I had led” (124). This attack was a very childish thing to do, but she realizes she is responsible for her actions which is the first step into transitioning into a woman. The child in Lizabeth took part in this childish act while the woman is realizing what her actions did. One night, when Lizabeth is in bed, her mother comes home and she hears her father crying because of the depression and hardship he is going through which causes Lizabeth to become so angry, she loses her mind. “The world had lost its boundary lines. My mother, who was small and soft, was now the strength of the family; my father, who was the rock on which this family had been built, was sobbing like the tiniest child. Everything was suddenly out of tune, like a broken accordion. Where did I fit into this crazy picture? I did not now remember my thoughts, only a feeling of great bewilderment and fear” (125). The thought of her father crying scares her and she did not know where she belonged or what to do. Lizabeth realizes that other people are suffering like her father. Lizabeth feels regret after the attack on Miss Lottie which shows she understands her actions and she starts to understand the world and her fathers suffering during this time.

At the time of the second attack on Miss Lottie’s marigolds, Lizabeth loses her innocence, understanding the poverty that she is living through, and feels compassion for other people. “Whatever verve there was left in her, whatever love and beauty and joy had not been squeezed out by life, had been there in the marigolds she had so tenderly cared for”(126). All of her childhood has been squeezed out of her and thinks about the reality that she is living through. Lizabeth thinks about how poor her family is, how her mom and dad both struggle, and the hardship that everyone is living through. After the second attack, Miss Lottie is standing in front of  Lizabeth, and she has no words for what she did and feels compassion for what she did. “Innocents involves an unseeing of acceptance of things at face value, and ignorance of the area below the surface. In that humiliating moment I looked beyond myself and right into the depths of another person. This was the beginning of compassion, and one cannot have both compassion and innocents” (126). At this moment, this was the end of Lizabeths innocence and she realizes what other people are feeling so she starts to feel compassion for others especially Miss Lottie. This was the moment when she loses her innocence and transitions into a woman. After Lizabeth hears her father cry, she goes to destroy Miss Lottie's marigolds and after doing so, she loses innocents by the world she lives in and the poverty, and feels compassion for others and how her actions affect other people.

During the first attack, Lizabeth acts cruel and is unaware of the poverty that her family is living through. After the first attack, she hears her father cry and that makes Lizabeth upset and rage up with a bunch of emotions. This leads to the second attack on Miss Lottie’s marigolds where Lizabeth destroys her marigolds and after this, she loses her innocence and has compassion for other people who are suffering. Throughout the story, Lizabeth becomes more mature and transitions into a woman. In these stages of my life, I have lost a lot of innocence and have become more mature. I have learned many new things and I can make the right decisions. A couple years ago, I was too ignorant to know when people were suffering but now I understand the world around me.

Works Cited

Collier, Eugenia. “Marigolds.” Negro Digest. Nov. 1969: 54-62. Print.