Two Short Stories on Two Young Firls

The first of the two short stories I read was The Flowers by Alice Walker. This story starts out innocent enough, describing a young girl taking a stroll around her family's farmland. Myop, the young girl, seems carefree and completely juvenile. Living up in a very rural area with probably only her family, she seems like she is completely free from any kind of corruption. The only thing that startles her at all is the fact that "her heel became lodged in the broken ridge between brow and nose" of a rotting human corpse (line 21). Only then did she give "a little yelp of surprise" (line 23).

This scene interests her very much, because she hadn't ever seen anything like it before. At first, she doesn't even act emotional at all about the scene. She picks a rose from near the body, then it seems as if she slowly realizes what she's found as she sees the noose of the rope. She laid down her flowers, "and the summer was over" (line 33). The summer ending represents the loss of innocence she experiences by discovering the rotting corpse. Every child at some point experiences this loss of innocence, although it's normally a lot less drastic than finding a rotting corpse. Once innocence is lost, though, it is over, and not coming back.

The next story, Girl, by Jamaica Kincaid illustrates a problem that pertains to some parents: they talk too much and don't listen enough. The story is almost completely made up of the mother's dialogue to her daughter. The daughter, however, gets only 25 words for herself in the entire story. The mother spends most of her time telling the girl how to do household chores, but more disturbingly alludes to her daughter wanting to be a "slut" and instructing her how to act differently. The mother seems extremely strict, railing against benna on Sundays, which is a type of Antigua folk music. Even when the girl interrupts her mother's ranting for a short bit, the mother either ignores the question or replies with a biting remark. The entire piece to me showed how ridiculous some strict parents can become in trying to discipline and instruct their children. Ultimately, they need to take time to listen as ell as talk to their children.