Maturity in The Short Story Marigolds Essay Example

Joshua L. Liebman once said, “Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values.” Maturity is something that doesn’t come naturally for everyone. Some may mature faster than others while some may take years to find their maturity. Liebman makes it clear that a specific moment in life may help someone set their priorities straight and help them decide what they really want for themselves in life. In the short story, “Marigolds,” the author Eugenia Collier uses the symbol of the marigolds’ destruction and the juxtaposition of the contrast between childish behavior and desire for maturity to show that it may take a specific eye-opening turning point in life and a vast number of mistakes to truly realize one’s maturity. 

Throughout her short story, Collier uses the symbol of the marigolds’ destruction to imply the theme that it may take a specific eye-opening moment to realize one’s maturity. After completely destroying Miss Lottie’s elegant marigolds, Lizabeth says, “I scrambled to my feet and just stood there and stared at her, and that was the moment when childhood faded and womanhood began” (Collier 22). By describing this eye-opening moment, Collier shows how the realization Lizabeth experienced helped her conclude that her childish and naïve actions needed to officially come to an end. Collier brought up the symbol of the marigolds multiple times throughout the story and after a countless amount of years Lizabeth spent messing around with them, she finally realized she needed to mature and move on from destroying them. Collier using the symbolism of the marigolds’ destruction was a huge turning point that led to the acceptance of Lizabeth’s maturity. Years later, Lizabeth reflects back on this moment: “The years have taken me worlds away from that time and that place, from the dust and squalor of our lives, and from the bright thing that I destroyed in a blind, childish striking out at God knows what” (Collier 23). Lizabeth now understands how important those marigolds were to Miss Lottie because of how Collier displays them as a symbol of hope and beauty during “squalor” times of their lives. If the author never described Lizabeth’s huge eye-opening experience destroying the marigolds, Lizabeth may have not matured and realized sooner how her childish actions were affecting other people. Although destructing the marigolds was selfish and harsh to Miss Lottie, it helped Lizabeth open her eyes to her own immaturity.

Collier illustrates the theme of how realizing one’s maturity can take a vast number of mistakes by juxtaposing Lizabeth’s struggle between wanting to stay a child at heart, but at the same time wanting to mature and face her struggles on her own. As Lizabeth sees her friends throwing rocks at Miss Lottie’s marigolds, she feels torn between wanting to join in with them again or not: “Suddenly I was ashamed, and I did not like being ashamed. The child in me sulked and said it was all in fun, but the woman in me flinched at the thought of the malicious attack that I had lead” (Collier 20). By using the juxtaposition of the fine line between childhood and womanhood, Collier demonstrates Lizabeth’s feelings towards her recent actions and mistakes. The child in her wants to keep messing with Miss Lottie’s marigolds and did not want to mature, saying “it was all fun.” Juxtaposing this, the woman in her feels guilty of all the damage she left. She constantly feels “torn between wanting to join the fun” and “feeling that it was all a bit silly” (Collier 20). While describing Lizabeth’s conflicting thoughts, the author suggests to readers that growing out of childhood and into womanhood isn’t an easy thing to accomplish. It comes with great responsibilities, difficult decisions, pressure, and years of mistakes; large or small. Ultimately, the juxtaposition Collier provides helps prove that it took Lizabeth an extensive amount of mistakes to learn from and mature.

Nevertheless, maturing is a very significant step that can help point individuals in the right direction of their life. It’s a long process that takes tons of patience and experiences. Collier proves this and adds that maturity may take an eye-opening experience and a generous number of mistakes by using the symbolism of the marigolds destruction and juxtaposing the difference between childhood and womanhood. There are several reasons people avoid maturity, most of them being due to the fact that they don’t want to face the dangers of the real world on their own. Lizabeth continues to destroy Miss Lottie’s marigolds as a way to take her internal pain away. Collier wants readers to know that maturing is someone’s own decision, not anyone else’s, no matter how long or what kind of process it takes to realize it.