Flower Garden

The short story Flower Garden is about two families The Winnings and the MacLane’s. Mrs. Winning lives in the winning house, but longs to live in the little cottage. When the cottage is bought by Mrs. MacLane she and Mrs. Winning become fast friends. One day they go out with the kids and see Billy Jones whose half white and half black; when Mrs. MacLane hears the boys call him a “nigger” she is appalled and asks him if he wants to work for her. When his dad starts to work for Mrs. MacLane people stop being nice to her and don’t want to be around her. I believe this short story is about the different viewpoints of society.

             

      I think a significant element in this story is the theme, the underlying fact in the story about their society. In the Flower Garden when Mrs. MacLane hires Mr. Jones Billy’s father to work her garden, that’s when people start to push her away. People just didn’t like Mrs. MacLane and they didn’t see her as a nice person. For example, When she asked Mrs. Winning why people didn’t like her she asked if it was because of Mr. Jones working for her and this is what Mrs. Winning thought, “The nerve of her, trying to blame the “colored folk,” and before that she said she wanted desperately for Mrs. MacLane  to be a nice person again. It’s almost like she’s saying Mrs. MacLane is a mean person for hiring Mr. Jones. It’s like there community has social norms that Mrs. MacLane unaware of and is apparently breaking.

 I feel the underlying theme in this story is that, all societies view people in different ways and have certain rules, no matter what. There’s always people that don’t follow the rules of society Mrs. MacLane is just one of those people.

Query: December 12th

This week's query.....  December 12th   
By: Sara H.

 In our world simplicity is often forgotten. There is so much stress because of people filling up their schedules. For example for kids, if you play two instruments, play  one or two sports, and have a lot of homework, you don’t have any time to relax. People constantly complain about how busy their schedules are, but if they only played one less instrument or one less sport it would be much less complicated.  Simplicity has so many meanings that we sometimes forget how it can be applied to our lives and schedules.

Here’s an example: (Show picture)

When you look at the schedule it is completely full,

Some things that could be eliminated are: Maybe one less soccer practice or less talking to your friends.

Cutting certain things from your schedule can make your life much less complicated.

This week’s query is: How can we simplify our schedules, to create less stress?