Alice Walker’s “The Flowers” is about an afternoon in the life of Myop, the daughter of sharecroppers in post-Civil War America. Although the story is quite brief, Walker paints a vivid picture of Myop’s world, allowing readers to infer what her life is like through the descriptions of the family’s home:

Turning her back on the rusty boards of her family's sharecropper cabin, Myop walked along the fence till it ran into the stream made by the spring. Around the spring, where the family got drinking water, silver ferns and wildflowers grow.

In this passage, we learn that her parents are sharecroppers, indicating that they may have some level of autonomy in their daily lives, although historically sharecroppers were treated unfairly. Readers understand that the family is poor, yet Myop experiences relative abundance. Walker describes an idyllic scene with plants growing wildly and animals grazing peacefully. Myop skips and sings as she roams freely, blissfully unaware of what she will discover that day.

Myop’s parents have some degree of independence, and they live a simple life on a farm. Compared to someone who lives in a crowded, polluted city, their life may seem preferable. They have fresh air and natural resources, such as the clean stream water they drink.

However, they are still poor in other ways, and it’s likely that many people living in cities during this time would not switch lives with Myop’s family if they had the opportunity. In terms of their likelihood for social mobility, sharecroppers were extremely limited. They did not own their animals or farming equipment and oftentimes were indebted to landowners. In many ways sharecropping allowed slavery to continue under a new name.

Furthermore, readers understand that Myop and her family are not safe where they live. When Myop discovers the dead body of a lynched sharecropper, her innocence is corrupted by the threat of the death of her own family members.