"The Flowers" by Alice Walker and "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid

“The Flowers” by Alice Walker is a short story describes the summer day of an African American young girl. Myop, the young girl, is taking an afternoon walk outside of her house and goes further into the distance where she isn’t accustomed to. Her innocence in the story is so well described, “she was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song…the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment.” This story exemplifies a timeline of the loss of innocence. The beginning is of pure, innocent childhood drastically striking of the loss of innocence for the young girl. The setting of Myop’s stroll is a pure example of innocent simplicity, it is however until she steps on a dead corpse of an African American man. Myop accidentally steps “in the broken ridge between brow and nose.” However, she isn’t afraid at first until, “she sees his naked grin that she gave a little yelp of surpise.” In the story, Walker describes Myop as she already knew how the man died, it is clear that he died from a lynching., “rotted remains of a noose..” The corpse of the man is rotting away in the forest giving the theme of Racism.

            Instead of running immediately away from home, Myop gives her respect to the dead man. She understands the meaning behind his death. Myop is holding a pink rose and lays the rose on the man. It is at the incident, readers can see the loss of innocence for the 10 year old girl.

In the beginning of “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, it describes chores and tasks a girl must complete. The line, “on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut that you are so bent on becoming.” After reading the short story, one understands that this isn’t describing chores or tasks, it is advice given to a daughter from the mother. There are two questions asked by the mother, they are answered, but only in the mind of the daughter. There are great amounts of advice given to the daughter, however there are not lines describing how she feels about it. From the amount, a reader gets a sense of overwhelming stress. The mother bombards the daughter with all the advice because she wants her to be perfect. It is as if the mother, in the past did the opposite of her own advice and tries to warn her daughter before it’s too late. The mother gives her advice in a timeline starting from not talking to boys in church to teaching her daughter the rules and boundaries of love, “this is how to love a man; and if this doesn’t work there are other ways…”

            Although the amount of advice the mother is giving is outrageously overwhelming especially for a young girl, the mother is giving her heart out. Knowing the rules now, the young girl can avoid mistakes. Her mother is giving her a right directional path to avoid destruction in her further womanly adulthood.