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.
Sara, You have a lot of good ideas here, and you correctly idenitify an important theme.You have some good examples, as well. It would be good to state the theme right away at the beginning of the second paragraph. That would strengthen your piece. Remember, the last paragraph is to sum everything up and pull your ideas together.
ReplyDelete3/5 points. Unfortunately, you have many mechanical and content errors that get in the way of your presentation of ideas. For example, in the first paragraph, "winning house" should be Winning house. In this sentence, you need a comma after Mrs. MacLane: "When the cottage is bought by Mrs. MacLane she and Mrs. Winning become fast friends." Also, the word "whose" should be who's. Unfortunately, there are many more errors in the paragraphs that follow. It is really important to reread and make corrections before you post.