Symbolism is an important aspect of many stories. It is used to give the reader a better understanding of the thoughts and the feelings of the characters. Author like Alice Walker in “The Flowers” clearly uses symbolism as a way to connect the character to the reader on different levels. Through a series of several symbols, Walker creates a vivid illustration of Myop's transition from innocence of childhood to the realities of life and all of its cruelties. Walker uses this whole situation of the corpse, flowers and summer to clearly illustrate the precise moment in which a child looses that treasured innocence.

The danger is first introduced by Myop entering the woods. It is in these woods that Myop encounters the single event that will lead to her loss of innocence: finding the corpse of a lynched man. Myop steps, by accident, into the face of this corpse and although frightened continues to remain joyful. Myop clears the remains from the man's face to find all of his white teeth cracked and broken. The description of the body is given in great detailed, “Myop saw that he had large white teeth, all of them cracked or broken, long fingers, and very big bones. All his clothes had rotted away except some threads of blue denim from his overalls” (Walker 405). The detailed description of the body indicates his probable ethnicity which is African-American, like Myop. In addition, the corpse suggest that something that was once white and pure has been broken by the cruel and harsh reality of the world.

Another symbol of innocence is the flowers that Myop happily picks. Flowers are a symbol of innocence because of its beauty and as it is easily broken and delicate as it is a symbol of death. Myop is trying to hang on to her childhood innocence and that she grasps at these flowers when she feels that her innocence may be threatened. For instance, as Myop begins to explore the woods, Walker states the following, “Today she made her own path, bouncing this way and that way, vaguely keeping an eye out for the snakes. She found, in addition to various common but pretty ferns and leaves, an armful of strange blue flowers with velvety ridges and a sweetsuds bush full of the brown, fragrant buds” (Walker 404). This shows how Myop was constantly watching out for adult situations, symbolized by the snakes, during her happy exploration to the woods in search of flowers. In addition, the flowers represents the unwillingness of a child to give up innocence. Also, the story ends with Myop paying her respect to the dead man by laying the flowers she had collected that day which also symbolizes how she laid down her innocence and childhood. Myop was never able to go back. Giving up the flowers means that she was also leaving behind her naivety and ignorance. The story began with summer and it ended as: "Then the summer was over". The summer in the story represents the ideas of innocence in a child. At first Myop was only aware of the bright side of things, at the middle of the story, her eyes were slowly being opened by the reality of the balance of good and evil and of happiness and sadness. Also, Myop tends to be oblivious to the world outside of her own. The quote, “She felt light and good in the warm sun. She was ten, and nothing existed for her but her song, the stick clutched in her dark brown hand, and the tat-de-ta-ta-ta of accompaniment,” (Walker 404) provides example of one of the many times that Walker speaks of Myop's oblivion.

With the use of all these symbols, Alice Walker provides a clear picture of the central theme of the story: that all people try to hang onto childhood innocence, but at some undeniable point the innocence disappears in us all.