In the story “Marigolds” by Eugenia W. Collier, Lizabeth feels that the boundary lines in her world have changed when she, Joey and his friends throw pebbles at the marigolds, when her father cries, and when she tears apart Miss Lottie’s flowers in the night. First off, Lizabeth is a fourteen-year-old girl living in the Great Depression, in a small poverty-stricken town. She is at the age where she feels she is becoming more woman than child. In the beginning, according to Lizabeth, about the moment they were preparing to attack the marigolds, “I just stood there… torn between wanting to join the fun and feeling that it was all a bit silly,¨ (page 3). Lizabeth, Joey and his friends were hiding in the bushes, collecting stones, as they were getting ready to chuck the rocks at the marigolds Miss Lottie was tending. Lizabeth wanted to help …show more content…
Lizabeth said that she ripped and ripped at the clump of flowers, while her brother screamed and cried for her to stop. She eventually relented and sat, captivated by this new feeling of anger and sadness, for Joey didn't know what to say. Suddenly, they found Ms. Lottie standing in front of them, her face gloomy and broken. ¨Ms. Lottie!¨ Lizabeth yelled. A high pace of emotions washed over Lizabeth- guilt, sympathy, compassion, and sudden realization that Ms. Lottie was no longer a witch- and she was no longer a child. (page 5). These thoughts and feelings prove she is not a child anymore. In the end, Lizabeth slowly felt she was becoming a woman when she and the children chopped off the flowers´ heads with rocks, and she felt something hold her back from doing so, and when she heard her father cry. She made that final jump to maturity when she tore apart Miss Lottie's marigolds, and a new wave of emotions, thoughts, and capability spawned in her