The Flowers

Flash fiction is short prose typically of 500 to 1,000 words. Although there is no defined word count for the genre, flash fiction will show the development of both character and plot to tell a story. Like its predecessors fables and parables, flash fiction gathers force by selectively compressing its subject matter. Compaction of the story makes every word count, including the title. Works in this genre often make use of the classical unities and depict only one to two characters in a single setting. The action of the story usually occurs in one setting within one day. As a genre, flash fiction utilizes symbols and allegory to impact the reader.

The time and place a story takes place is called the setting. In “The Flowers,” the micro setting is Myop’s family’s sharecropper farm as well as nearby lands. The macro setting is post-Reconstruction in the American South during the Jim Crow era. Readers can infer the time period based on the reference to Myop’s “sharecropper cabin.” In addition, the hanged man’s manner of death signifies the racial tensions of the period.