Comparative analysis between “Negrinha” and “The Flowers”

Introduction

For this comparative analysis, two different tales will be taken into account, the first is “The
flowers”, written by Alice Walker and published in 1981. It tells the story of Myop, a 10-year-old
girl, who lives with her family in a rural house. The second is “Negrinha”, written by Monteiro
Lobato and published in 1927. It tells the story of “Negrinha”, a 7-year-old girl who lives with her
late mother's “boss” on a farm.
This succinct analysis will take into account some of the fundamental elements for a
narrative such as plot, characters, space, time and setting, not necessarily in that order. For a clearer
and more cohesive organization, these items will be covered in a mixed way in three micro
chapters. For a more structured argument, excerpts from both stories will be cited. Both
texts will remain in their original languages. This means that the text of Alice Walker will remain in
English, as well as the text of Monteiro Lobato será mantido em português.

Summer: the season of stolen childhoods

In “The flowers” the protagonist is Myop, a 10-year-old girl who lives with her family. In
the story only the mother is mentioned, the father, siblings or any other family member are not
mentioned. She is a young black girl, as the passage “the stick clutched in her dark brown hand”
points out. And she is, most likely, the daughter of African Americans ex-slaves (as the following
chapter clarifies). In short, “Myop” is a happy child, who sings, plays and walks around the place
where she lives. Another character that appears in the story is the man, apparently, without
identity, but who is deduced to be a black person and who died hanged. The mystery surrounding
his death makes him the antagonist of the tale (not necessarily a villain). It’s from the contact with
his skeleton that arouses in “Myop” a new feeling. This feeling can be a bad omen, fear, or a trigger
for some dark memory that she has heard from older people and it makes she “laid down her
flowers”. Also the tale says “the summer was over”, a possible metaphor for the end of childhood,
or at least for the end of the innocence that this phase enjoyed.
The protagonist homonymous to the tale, “Negrinha”, as the name might suggest, is
described as a “fusca, mulatinha escura, de cabelos ruços e olhos assustados”, that means, she is like
Myop, a black girl. She became an orphan at the age of 4, after that she passed to lives with her
mother's “boss”: “D. Inácia”. Since “Negrinha” was a baby suffered in “D. Inácia’s” hands, because
she didn’t like to hear the sound of crying, so even if “Negrinha” felt hungry or in pain, she should
remain silent. When she grew up, she became introspective, because she was forced to remain
silent, she couldn’t play or leave the living room, under the threat of being punished.
The antagonist of the story is “D. Inácia” (and in this case the words
antagonist and villain can be taken as synonyms). She was an ex-slave lady, owner of the farm
where she lived. “D. Inácia” was a real executioner for the girl, punishing her for silly reasons and
sometimes for pleasure. The treatment she gave to “Negrinha” only improves, a little, after the visit
of her nieces during the December holidays. But she doesn't become someone maternal and caring,
she just softens her brutal treatment with “Negrinha”, but it's not enough. Her nieces leave the farm
at the end of the vacation, leaving “Negrinha” without the toys that she was completely fall in love.
A month later, immersed in internal sadness, almost at the end of that summer “Negrinha” dies.

The house, besides it, trees with strange fruits

The tales present different chronotopes, but in some points they assume interesting
similarities. “The flowers” takes place in the United States, most likely, after black slavery, one of
the main achievements of the American Civil War. This achievement, the Emancipation Act, was
institutionalized by the American President Abraham Lincoln, on January 1st, 1863. This historic
moment can be seen in the short story “turning her back on the rusty boards of her family's
sharecropper cabin” (WALKER), because a:

sharecropping is a type of farming in which families rent small plots of land from a
landowner in return for a portion of their crop, to be given to the landowner at the
end of each year, (…) it was typically practiced by former slaves (HISTORY.COM
EDITORS, 2010).

Another point that leads to the cited historical moment, is the end of the text, when “Myop”
finds a decapitated skeleton with broken teeth and a rope tied to the tree, as it is suggestively clear
that a man had died there after being tortured and then hanged. A common practice since 1863 in
the so-called “era of lynching”:

during the period between the Civil War and World War II, thousands of African
Americans were lynched in the United States. Lynchings were violent and public
acts of torture that traumatized black people throughout the country and were largely
tolerated by state and federal officials. These lynchings were terrorism. “Terror
lynchings” (…) claimed the lives of African American men, women, and children
who were forced to endure the fear, humiliation, and barbarity of this widespread
phenomenon unaided. (STEVENSON)
This information is important to understand the historical moment. No doubt, it was not one of the
best period to live in USA, especially for the people persecuted at this time, the African Americans,
ethnicity to which “Myop” and his family belonged.
The second story, “Negrinha”, as well as “The flowers”, takes place in a post-slavery era,
but in Brazil, where the “Lei Áurea”, Signed by Princess Isabel, institutionally marks the end of
slavery on May 13, 1888. Of course, until this day had a gradual process of struggles, resistance,
laws that fought the slave trade, as well as internal and international pressure. But despite the tale
taking place after 1888, the “D. Inácia” attitudes were still prior to the date, as the following excerpt
suggests that “O 13 de maio tirou-lhe das mãos o azorrague, mas não lhe tirou da alma a gana”
(LOBATO, 2008) and still:

A excelente D. Inácia era mestra na arte de judiar de crianças. Vinha da escravidão,

fora senhora de escravos e daquelas ferozes, amigas de ouvir contar o bolo e estalar
o bacalhau. Nunca se afizera ao regímen novo [a Lei Áurea] — essa indecência de
negro igual a branco; e qualquer coisinha, a polícia!! (LOBATO, 2008)

But although both characters were born in a post-slavery era, only the American is actually
free. “Myop” could explore the space where she lived, walk and play with what she wants, without
any restriction or punishment, whether playing with poking the chickens, singing, picking flowers,
strolling through the forest... In a nutshell, “Myop” was free to live her childhood, free to be a child.
Unlike the Brazilian who, despite living on a farm, her space was limited to a few rooms in
the house where she lived. She stayed in the kitchen, during the meal period and, mostly, in the
living room, where she should be sitting and quiet “aprendeu a andar, mas não andava, quase. Com
pretexto de que, às soltas, reinaria no quintal, estragando as plantas, a boa senhora punha-a na sala,
ao pé de si, num desvão de porta” (LOBATO, 2008). Also, she doesn’t to play like Myop, her only
amusement was a cuckoo that hourly got off the clock. “Negrinha” couldn’t experience her
childhood, playing was something that she only dreamed.

Sunset and dawn

The tales are very contrasting in the climate that they assume throughout the narrative. “The
flowers” begins with a happy and optimistic ambience “it seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly
from hen house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been as beautiful as these”. This
climate remains for at least four of the nine paragraphs of the text.
 So from this positive setting, the text takes on a different mood, something close to the
somber and melancholy “she had often been as far before, but the strangeness of the land made it
not as pleasant as her usual haunts. It seemed gloomy in the little cove in which she found herself.
The air was damp, the silence close and deep” (WALKER). The tale ends, subtly, with the loss of
the innocence of a child who noticed, by chance, the death, revealing the darker face of the tale so
far. First she finds a skull “It was then she stepped smack into his eyes. Her heel became lodged in
the broken ridge between brow and nose” (WALKER); then the string “she noticed a raised mound,
a ring, around the rose's root. It was the rotted remains of a noose, a bit of shredding plowline, now
blending benignly into the soil” (WALKER); and finally “the summer was over”, is what the last
line says. A possible metaphor for the end of childhood, or at least the end of the innocence that this
phase enjoyed, as the first chapter had already said.
In “Negrinha”, the complete opposite occurs. The story begins with a pessimistic and
melancholy tone “assim cresceu Negrinha — magra, atrofiada, com olhos eternamente assustados.
Órfã aos quatro anos, ficou por ali, feita gato sem dono, levada a pontapés. Não compreendia a idéia
dos grandes. Batiam-lhe sempre, por ação ou omissão” (LOBATO, 2008). In addition to this
description, other events as unfortunate as are narrated. The girl lives in a private hell of
punishment, name-calling and torture.
However, the environment changes from the second half of the text onwards with the arrival
of “D. Inácia's” nieces and her toys, especially when “Negrinha” takes the doll of one of them
“pegou a boneca. E muito sem jeito, como quem pega o Senhor Menino, sorria para ela e para as
meninas (...). Era como se penetrara o céu e os anjos a rodeassem, e um filhinho de anjo lhe viesse
adormecer ao colo” (LOBATO, 2008). At the end of the story “Negrinha” dies, which could have a
sad or melancholy tone, as the figure of death had in “The flowers”, but not in this tale. Her death is
described from a very particular beauty, but still, far from being a misfortune:

Morreu na esteirinha rota, abandonada de todos, como um gato sem dono. Ninguém,
entretanto, morreu jamais com maior beleza. O delírio rodeou-se de bonecas, todas
louras, de olhos azuis. E de anjos... E bonecas e anjos rodamoinhavam em torno
dela, numa farândola do céu. Sentia-se agarrada por aquelas mãozinhas de louça,
abraçada, rodopiada. (LOBATO 2008)

Thus, as Yin and Yang in Taoism are items in perfect opposition, Walker and Monteiro's
tales are contrasted in a reverse setting. It’s as if there was a degrade, in the first, the tale goes from
light (positive things) to darkness (negative things). In the second, the tale goes from darkness
(negative things) to light (positive things).
Conclusion
There is still much to be explored in the tales. Both reveal interesting particularities, but
what draws attention are the similarities that the tales share. Despite belonging to different places
and times, each tale reveals in its own way one of the worst moments in human history, black
slavery. Walker’s implicit with Monteiro’s explicit writing weave scenes that make you reflect and
revolt with a precise selection of words.

References
LOBATO, Monteiro. Negrinha. In: Negrinha. São Paulo: Editora Globo, 2008.

HISTORY.COM EDITORS. Sharecropping. Published in: Jun. 24, 2010. Site, available in:
<https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/sharecropping> Visited: Feb. 29, 2020.

STEVENSON, Bryan. Introduction. (Date from publishing not informed) In: Lynching in America.
Site, available in: <https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/> Visited: Feb. 29, 2020.

WALKER, Alice. The flowers. Published in: 1981. Pdf, available in:
<http://crmsl.weebly.com/uploads/6/3/1/4/63143381/the_flowers_by_alice_walker.pdf> Visited:
Feb. 29, 2020.