1.

Incongruency means inconsistency or lack of

harmony or agreement.
2. Amorphous means vague or shapeless.
3. Chary means not generous.
4. Inexplicable means unexplainable or
incomprehensible.
5. Ostensibly means apparently.
6. Retribution means revenge.
7. Stoicism means calm indifference to
pleasure or pain.
8. Impotent means powerless or helpless.
9. Pallet means small bed or cot.
10. Contrition means deep feelings of guilt
and repentance.
11. Bravado means false show of bravery.
12. Squalor means filthy or shabby condition as
from poverty.
Questions about Eugenia Collier
■ What is the author’s lifestyle like?
■ Were there any major events that may have
greatly influenced this author?
■ Does the author have anything to gain or to
lose?
Reading the Background….
■ What’s the unfortunate event that greatly
affected America and its people?
■ How did the unfortunate event influence the
life of the narrator and her family?
Reading of the Text

Time Starts:
After Reading of the
Text
Determining the story
theme
■ Because the authors usually do not directly
state a story’s theme, and develop it
gradually over the course of the text, you
will need to look for clues such as setting,
plot events, and the main character’s
responses to challenges.
■ A story’s theme sometimes does not
become truly clear to readers until the
main character’s conflict has been
resolved.
■ In your reading, take note of the following:
Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.
■ Reread Lines 1-12 and identify details that
help you the time and place of the story.
■ What do these details suggest about what
might be important to the theme?
“the home town of my youth”; “dust of late
summer”; “lush green lawns and paved streets
under leafy shade trees somewhere in town”;
“dry September of the dirt roads and grassless
yards of the shanty-town where I lived”

The theme may relate to poverty.

■ Writers rarely state a story’s theme.
■ Details about plot events and characters,
as well as what the narrator says
throughout a story, provide clues about
its theme.
■ Reread Lines 15–26 and identify details that
may relate to the author’s lesson or message.
■ What do the details suggest about the theme?
“the memory of those marigolds . . . remains
long after the picture has faded”; “devastating
moment when I was suddenly more woman than
child, years ago in Miss Lottie’s yard”; “think of
those marigolds at the strangest times.”

The theme has to do with growing up. It is

related to an event connected to the marigolds
in Miss Lottie’s yard.
Analyzing Language
What is Metaphor?
■ is a comparison of two things that are
basically unlike but have some qualities in
common.
■ It does not contain the words like or as.
■ Reread Lines 27–29 and identify the
comparison.
■ How does this comparison affect the tone or
feeling in the story?
■ “Futile waiting” is compared to “sorrowful
background music.”
■ It suggests a feeling of desperation and
ongoing sadness.
 Analyzing Stories:
Characters’ Motivation
■ A character’s motivations are the
reasons for his or her actions.
■ An author may state a character’s
motivation directly, or readers may need
to use details to figure it out.
■ Reread Lines 78-88 and identify how Joey and
his friends feel at this point.
■ How might their feelings move the story
forward?
■ “Joey and a bunch of kids were bored now”
■ They want to “go somewhere” to find a new
activity or some adventure.
Making Inferences
What is an Inference?
■ refers to a logical guess that is made based on
facts and one’s own knowledge.
■ Reread the sentence in Lines 104–105.
■ What can you guess about the children and
Miss Lottie?
■ The narrator says that “annoying Miss Lottie
was always fun,” which suggests that it is
something the children do often.
 Analyzing Stories:
Characters’ Motivation
■ Details in a text can help them
understand what is motivating
characters to do what they do.
■ Reread the sentence on Line 141.
■ What is motivating the children to annoy Miss
Lottie?
■ They find Miss Lottie to be some sort of
challenge. She is a poor, elderly woman, yet
they are a little afraid of her, which is probably
exciting to them.
■ In Lines 128-140, the word “retribution”
appears wherein it’s used to describe the
children’s practice of goading Ms. Lottie’s son
into a violent reaction.
■ Based on their actions, do these children
deserve retribution? Why?
Determining the Theme
■ In addition to being the title of the story, were
the marigolds a key memory for the narrator?
■ Reread Lines 158–174 and identify the
narrator’s description of, and reaction to,
seeing the marigolds.
■ How might this aspect of the setting contribute
to the story’s theme?
■ “them crazy flowers”; “strangest part of the
picture”; “did not fit in with the crumbling decay”;
“dazzling strip of bright blossoms, clumped
together in enormous mounds, warm and
passionate and sun-golden”; “interfered with the
perfect ugliness of the place; they were too
beautiful”; “they did not make sense”

■ The narrator may learn something from the

beauty of the flowers.
■ In Line 146, the word “stoicism” is mentioned
to describe Ms. Lottie’s face.
■ Why might Ms. Lottie’s face show “stern
stoicism”?
■ It seems that she has had a difficult life. She
may not want the children to know how much
their taunting bothers her.
■ In Line 171, the word “perverse” is used to
describe the children’s reaction towards Ms.
Lottie’s flowers.
■ Why do you think that the narrator’s use of the
word “perverse” appropriate?
■ The flowers are one of the few pretty things in
the neighborhood. A natural response would
be to like them, but the children have the
opposite reaction.
Analyzing Language
■ Reread Lines 197–201 and explain what the
phrase “the bars of our cage” refers to.
■ How does the comparison add to readers’
understanding of the characters?
■ The poverty of children’s lives is like a cage
from which they cannot escape.
■ It emphasizes how little control they have over
their lives; they have little chance of escaping
the poverty in which they live.
■ In Line 195, the narrator used the word
“Bravado”.
■ Why might Elizabeth make a “gesture of phony
bravado”?
■ She wants the younger children to think she is
tough and brave.
Making Inferences
■ What do you do when you make inferences?
■ Where do you get these?
■ Reread Lines 237–248 and identify the
conflicting feelings Lizabeth is experiencing.
■ Why does she have “a particularly bitter
argument” with Joey?
■ “The child in me sulked and said it was all in
fun, but the woman in me flinched at the
thought of the malicious attack”
■ She is taking her anger at herself out on him.
■ In Line 246, the word “exuberance” is used.
■ Why do you think Joey is exuberant so long
after the incident at Miss Lottie’s?
■ Joey is young and probably still excited and
pleased about the attack.
Analyzing Language
■ In Lines 264-265, look for the informal
negative sentences (Double Negatives).
■ Restate it.
■ Ain’t nobody got nothing nowadays.
(No one has anything these days.)

■ I ain’t talking about nobody else.

(I am not talking about anybody else.)
■ Differentiate Simile from Metaphor.
■ Are there words that differentiate them when
used?
■ Reread Lines 287–293 and identify
comparisons.
■ What is the impact of these comparisons?
■ “My father, who was the rock on which the
family had been built”; “sobbing like the tiniest
child”; “out of tune, like a broken accordion”
■ They emphasize the narrator’s confused
state.
 Analyzing Stories:
Characters’ Motivation
■ A character’s reaction to story events
or a situation is often a motivation for
his or her actions.
■ Reread lines 287–300 and identify details
that help explain what motivates Lizabeth to
wake Joey.
■ How might Lizabeth’s actions move the story
forward?
■ “The world had lost its boundary lines”;
“Everything was suddenly out of tune”; “a
feeling of great bewilderment and fear”;
“wishing that I too could cry and be
comforted”; “the room was too crowded with
fear”; “the terrible aloneness of 4 a.m.”
■ She seems to be at an emotional turning
point. Whatever she does next will help bring
about the story’s resolution.
■ Reread Lines 324–338 and identify the
different feelings that are causing Lizabeth to
return to Miss Lottie’s.
■ Why do these feelings provoke her actions at
Miss Lottie’s?)
■ the “need for my mother who was never
there”; “hopelessness of our poverty and
degradation”; “bewilderment of being neither
child nor woman”; ”fear unleashed by my
father’s tears”
■ Her feelings “combined in one great impulse
toward destruction,” leading her to ruin the
marigold garden.
Determining the Theme
■ A symbol is a person, place, or thing that
stands for something beyond itself.
■ Thinking about what symbols stand for can
help readers understand the theme of the
story.
■ Reread Lines 351–361.
■ What do Miss Lottie and her marigolds
symbolize to the narrator?
■ What does Lizabeth’s reaction to seeing Miss
Lottie reveal about her?
■ Miss Lottie symbolizes the ugliness and failure
of the narrator’s life. The marigolds symbolize
the beauty that Miss Lottie had tried to create,
which was ultimately destroyed. Miss Lottie’s
effort to create beauty in the midst of her ugly
surroundings was seemingly futile.
■ She feels she is no longer a child. Through
Miss Lottie, she has begun to see the world
through an adult’s eyes.
■ In Line 359, the word “Squalor” is used to
describe the way Miss Lottie lived.
■ Why might the marigolds have been so
important to a woman who lived in squalor?
■ They served as an antidote to the wretched
conditions in which she lived.
■ A theme is the message or lesson
about life that an author wants to
share.
■ Reread Lines 365–386.
■ What is a theme of this story?
■ What text details support the theme?
■ There is beauty for those willing to see it.
■ “One does not have to be ignorant and poor to
find that one’s life is barren as the dusty yards
of one’s town. And I too have planted
marigolds.”
■ Write a short essay in which you analyze how
Lizabeth changes over the course of
“Marigolds”.
■ Be sure to support your ideas with sufficient
evidence from the text.
Guide Questions before you write:
■ How aware is Lizabeth of her own surroundings
and the wider world?
■ What does Lizabeth’s reflection at the end of
the story suggest about her feelings toward the
move into adulthood?
■ Please secure a copy of pages 226 and 227
for tomorrow’s activity.
■ NO COPY, NO ENTRY.