Marigolds

The first-person narrator is a much older Lizabeth reflecting on a formative day in her childhood. Why do you believe the author chose this narration style?

The narrator states that “[t]he Depression that gripped the nation was no new thing to us, for the black workers of rural Maryland had always been depressed” (2). Despite this sentence, the Great Depression had impacted Lizabeth’s family in many ways, and their lives were even more challenging. How does the Great Depression create a cascading effect in Lizabeth’s family that pushes her to an emotional breaking point? Use evidence from the text to reinforce your response.

Discuss how the older narrator’s reflections affect the reader’s understanding of the story. Choose a quote, such as this one on Page 2—“Nowadays we would be called ‘culturally deprived,’ and white people would write books and hold conferences about us. In those days everybody we knew was just as hungry and ill-clad as we were”—and discuss how the adult Lizabeth’s views provide context for Lizabeth’s actions as well as for the experience of Black people during the Great Depression and the decades following it.