Alice Walker

Myop is a ten year old girl living in a rural area. She is having a great time skipping along and thinking, “that the days had never been as beautiful as these”. She lives with her family in a rusty sharecropper cabin where they had pigs, a hen house and other farm animals. The setting is peaceful and shows that she has had a normal, healthy childhood so far.

Myop is a happy child. She delights in exploring around the house and playing with the animals that live there. Her childhood has been a healthy one; she often takes walks with her mother and plays with the chickens in the hen house. She plays imaginary instruments and makes up her own music because “she

. . .
She is as carefree and content as any child living in a youthful world. She has just witnessed an extreme act of human cruelty and is forever changed. She often takes walks with her mother but today “she made her own path, bouncing this way and that, vaguely keeping an eye out for snakes. She notices that he was a tall man, with large teeth and long fingers. The little cove she finds herself in is now gloomy and damp and the silence “was close and deep”. He was also wearing overalls when he died which peeks her interest. With this new revelation she once again examines the scene, this time with more then just curiosity. She lays down her flowers and “the summer was over forever”.

By the end of her walk she is pretty far from home and laden down with flowers she has picked. “The summer was over” is a great last line because it takes on both meanings. This change in setting and tone symbolizes that something is about to happen to Myop that is unpleasant. These examples are used by Walker to communicate that Myop is going through some changes and will not be a child forever. She is not as innocent and naïve as the girl who skipped into the forest earlier. She is uncomfortable with being alone when just earlier she felt as free and happy as a bird. There is a “raised mound, a ring around the rose’s root”.

Common topics in this essay:
Walkers Flowers, lays flowers, walks mother, takes walks mother, hen house, walk woods, takes walks,

Approximate Word count = 757
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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