Lizabeth

Lizabeth, the story’s narrator and protagonist, is a woman reflecting on her childhood and adolescence spent growing up in an impoverished Black community in rural Maryland during the Great Depression.

Early on in the narrative, she and the other neighborhood children are somewhat insulated from recognizing the full extent of their poverty. As her story progresses and she begins to see the world from a new, more mature perspective, her sense of the world around her shifts dramatically and she comes to recognize the harshness of her surroundings.

Lizabeth recalls one event that feels particularly representative of her transition from girlhood to womanhood. One day, with her younger brother, Joey, and some other neighborhood kids, she decides to antagonize their elderly neighbor Miss Lottie. Despite some early trepidation that this kind of playing might be too “silly” for her now that she is entering adolescence, Lizabeth herself winds up leading the group in an unusually raucous charge. They chant, call Miss Lottie names, and attempt to destroy her prized marigold garden. Later, Lizabeth feels ashamed at her part in the cruelty. She begins to feel that maybe she is now more a woman than a child.

That night, Lizabeth hears her father cry for the first time. Just as her sense of self is upended by the day’s juvenile transgressions, her sense of the world around her is upended by her father’s expressions of frustration and anguish in being unable to find work. Struggling to grapple with the difficult world around her, Lizabeth lashes out. In a fit of confusion and rage, she destroys Miss Lottie’s cherished marigolds.

In the immediate aftermath of the destruction, Lizabeth begins to see the world more clearly and finally starts to understand the impact of what she has done. This moment, present-day Lizabeth recalls, is the first moment in which she sees “a kind of reality which is hidden to childhood.” For the first time, Lizabeth recognizes Miss Lottie’s circumstances and humanity, helping her to better understand her own.

Miss Lottie

At the beginning of the story, Miss Lottie, Lizabeth’s elderly neighbor, is framed as a kind of antagonist. An imposing, stern, elderly woman, Miss Lottie is the target of the neighborhood kids, who make a sport of taunting her, damaging her prized marigolds, and calling her a witch. They circulate legends about her amongst themselves, viewing her as an almost mythical villain instead of a woman from the neighborhood.

Grappling with a mixture of difficult emotions, Lizabeth flies into a fit of rage and confusion and single-handedly uproots her whole garden. After her tantrum, she finally begins to see Miss Lottie as human—“no longer a witch,” she recalls, “but only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility.” This moment marks Lizabeth’s awareness of her own transition from childhood into womanhood. Her new understanding of Miss Lottie allows her to better understand the difficult circumstances surrounding them all. Moreover, Lizabeth comes to appreciate Miss Lottie’s attempts to foster beauty and hope amid those circumstances.

Joey

Joey is Lizabeth’s brother and is three years her junior. The two are close friends, though they often argue and disagree. In “Marigolds,” Joey serves a sidekick of sorts to Lizabeth—he is always at her side and seems, at first, to take directions from her. When she leads the neighborhood kids in their boisterous campaign against Miss Lottie, he is excited to engage. Despite his enthusiasm and bravado, he is somewhat afraid of Miss Lottie.

Later, when Lizabeth gets up in the middle of the night and...