Coming-of-Age Stories and What They Say About Broader Social Issues

Coming-of-age Stories are an author’s way of addressing or advocating for social change. They showcase the change of worldview as new realities that the individual did not anticipate being set in. Usually, this genre is set in the past and presents the protagonist's thoughts or internal monologue as they encounter experiences that culminate in their epiphany. Moreover, authors use these stories to document broader societal aspects, especially problematic ones like the darkness in humanity, that people only learn about when they encounter scary or bizarre events. Therefore, they are told as a biographical event leading to a permanent change of worldview, allowing readers to see the underlying major societal themes. Stories such as "The Flowers" depict the process of coming of age through metaphor and setting, which also underscore the theme of racism against black people and other important themes.

“The Flowers” tells the story of a ten-year-old girl, Myop, whose view of the world as a peaceful place changes after she encounters a lynched man’s body on a flower farm near her home. Myop and her family live in a sharecropper cabin close to neighbouring woods, where she finds joy in picking flowers and enjoying summer. One day, she visits the woods, and she becomes socially aware of racism after finding a lynched man's body lying in the woods. She lowered the flowers she had picked, and summer ended. The end of the summer signifies the upcoming difficult times that would occur for Myop due to her identity.

The name Myop is metaphorically used to reflect the innocence people have before the grand encounter with the harsh realities of life. Myopia is used as a short form of myopia, which technically means short-sightedness, and Walker used it to reflect the childhood innocence everyone has before they learn about the darkness in society. Children are innocent, just like Myop dances lightly with a stick as she enjoys summer at her home, unbeknownst to her, what awaits her in the woods. She only knows about the blooming flowers and their beauty, her family's pigpen, smokehouse, and hen house, which makes her think that days have never been as beautiful as those. She does not even understand that living in a sharecropper cabin means that she has a low socioeconomic background and that her identity is why she is also in danger of experiencing social evils like the lynching of a man. Placing this in a broader context, the author shows that society is only kind before people learn the evils it harbours.

The story’s setting portrays the low socioeconomic status of black people. The story is set shortly after slavery because her family inhabits a sharecropper cabin, meaning that farmers would grow their crops and access the profits (World Food Policy Center). The presence of the woods and the proximity to the house also show that it is a rural area, meaning that the family could not afford to live in developed neighbourhoods. In this context, Walker paints a vivid picture of the economic heights that black people would reach at the time. It was just after the harsh Jim Crow laws that supported racial segregation, dissuading people of African descent from accessing opportunities like their white counterparts. Myop’s family represents the people of African descent who must work exceedingly hard to achieve social mobility because the system is characterized by oppression against them. Elements of racism are deeply embedded in systems and institutions, and they are rooted in the discriminatory and segregationist laws imposed during periods like the Jim Crow era. Rogers and Bryant-Davis (35) state that policies such as those imposed during Jim Crow have caused the affected population long-term trauma. Therefore, even though people wish to be wealthy like white people, they cannot easily get there due to minimal opportunities for employment and education. Therefore, the story serves as a medium through which the author portrays the problem of economic inequality among African Americans.

The setting aids the author in accentuating the plight of African Americans caused by racial injustice and violence. Crawford (2) says that Walker portrays the extremity of racial injustice when “the protagonist's optimistic perspective of the world suddenly meets destruction due to the mutilation of a man's decaying body.” The author contends that this is among the experiences that characterized the Jim Crow era because people followed policies without questioning how ethical they were. Walker says that Myop has been in these woods 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 1). She thought the world was friendly and that what she knew was all that happened everywhere. The description of the eerie silence and the strange atmosphere in the woods portrays the transition of worldviews from a limited perspective to an informed social awareness. Myop started experiencing this feeling before stepping on a rotten corpse, which she then realized had died by hanging (Walker 1). From that moment, she did not understand society the same way again. In this sense, setting the story at the farm was important to show the means through which black people were killed and how the white-dominated society overlooks such evils. It shows that they would be killed anyhow, regardless of whether they had committed crimes or not. That relates to the issue of police brutality against African Americans. For example, George Floyd's murder by a white police officer brought to people's attention the petty mistakes that get black people killed in America. Sometimes, they are killed just for being black. Although such events still happened, Floyd's story shed light on their severity, increasing the need for movements such as Black Lives Matter. Therefore, Walker’s story portrays the impacts of violence and racial injustice that people of African descent continue to experience in a white-dominated society.

In conclusion, Walker’s coming-of-age story portrays the turn of events in individuals’ lives once they find out about societal evils, and also portrays how oppressive policies impact the lives of the affected. It sheds light on the impacts of racism African Americans faced during and after slavery and even in the contemporary world. Taking away a young girl’s innocence in Walker’s story was essential in portraying the suffering of African Americans under racist ideals and discrimination. Even after the end of slavery, systemic oppression continues to make their lives difficult by hindering them from achieving social mobility. Limited education and employment opportunities are still disturbing issues among people of colour, especially black people, and there needs to be policy changes to address the issue.