Marigolds

The short story “Marigolds” (1969) by Eugenia Collier is narrated by Lizabeth. It opens with the main character contemplating the hometown of her youth and recalling “dust—the brown, crumbly dust of late summer—arid, sterile dust that gets into the eyes and makes them water, gets into the throat and between the toes of bare brown feet” (1). Lizabeth’s rural hometown was hit hard by the Great Depression, but she points out that “the Depression that gripped the nation was no new thing to us, for the black workers of rural Maryland had always been depressed” (2). In this way, she pulls in one of the primary conflicts in the story: that economic hardship is even harder for the Black community.

This guide refers to the version of the text within the short story collection Breeder and Other Stories by Eugenia Collier.

The main character, Lizabeth, is 14 and running wild with her 11-year-old brother, Joey, and a group of unnamed, mixed-aged children. Her older siblings have left home to find work or get married, and “the two babies [had] been sent to relatives who might care for them better than we” (3). Each morning, her parents leave the house—her mother to work in a white family’s home and her father to try to find work. After they complete their chores, Lizabeth and her brother are “free to run wild in the sun with other children similarly situated” (3). The story focuses on the ambiguity of Lizabeth’s age, being a child on the cusp of womanhood, and with that blossoming maturity comes the dawning realization that she and her family are in dire circumstances with little hope for an improved life.

One day, Lizabeth is drawing pictures in the dust, and Joey playfully destroys the drawing. Another day, because the group of children is bored, Joey suggests they go pester Miss Lottie. Miss Lottie is an elderly woman living with her son in the most ramshackle house in town. She does not ever seem to leave her yard, even for necessities, and the children speculate that she is a witch, though Lizabeth is quick to add that she is too old to believe such things now. Miss Lottie is considered even stranger for tenaciously tending to her beautiful marigolds in the midst of an otherwise ugly yard and home.

Miss Lottie’s son, John Burke, sits in a rocking chair all day and does not speak, but if he is disturbed, he becomes angry and strikes out at the perpetrator. The children enjoy bothering John Burke and then evading his attempts to catch them, but their primary entertainment comes from Miss Lottie and her marigolds.

Because the flowers are so incompatible with their surroundings, the children direct their ire at them to get a reaction from Miss Lottie. Lizabeth and the other children throw stones at the marigolds, inciting Miss Lottie’s rage. Lizabeth is the boldest of the children, and she taunts Miss Lottie before John Burke chases the children away. Afterward, instead of sharing in the jokes of the other children, Lizabeth begins to feel ashamed of her malicious behavior.

At home, after Joey and Lizabeth eat a simple meal with their father and go to bed, Lizabeth is woken by her parents speaking in the middle of the night. Her mother has finally arrived home from her domestic job, and her father is speaking candidly about his struggles with finding work and providing for his family.

Lizabeth’s mother tries to console him by reminding him that she has work that keeps the family fed and that the family she works for gives her items to help. This declaration offends Lizabeth’s father, who says, “‘You think I want white folks’ leavings? God damn, Maybelle’—and suddenly he sobbed, loudly and painfully, and cried into the dark night” (10). Her father’s unemployment has eroded his sense of pride and broken something in him. At the same time, her mother shows strength and resilience in the face of her husband’s pain.

This moment between her parents—during which her mother must be the strong one who comforts her husband—crushes Lizabeth, who has always viewed her father as “the rock on which the family had been built” (10). This moment bewilders and frightens Lizabeth, who cannot process what happened, so she is propelled into action and wakes her brother.

Lizabeth and her brother leave the house. Lizabeth returns to Miss Lottie’s marigolds for the second time and attacks them while sobbing. She destroys them completely and then is faced with Miss Lottie, who is not angry with her, because “the garden [i]s destroyed and there [i]s nothing any longer to protect” (12).

In this moment, Lizabeth’s innocence ends, and she understands the pain she has caused Miss Lottie. Instead of seeing the witch of her childhood, she sees “a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility” (12). Despite Lizabeth’s “wild contrition, [Miss Lottie] never plant[s] marigolds again” (13). The story ends with the narrator’s present-day reflection that she too has known hardship and challenges in her life, and that “[she] too ha[s] planted marigolds” (13).