Question

Lizabeth discusses how she grew up during The Great Depression in America's 1930s. However, while she was growing up, was the narrator AWARE of her family's financial struggles? Explain why she MIGHT not have been aware of it. From story Marigolds By: Eugenia W. Collier

Answer 1

Answer:

The narrator Lizabeth doesn't seem to be aware of the family's financial struggles nor of the Great Depression that envelops the whole nation. This is because she was just a child. Moreover, it may also be that the whole community was so used to living a life of poverty and struggle that it "was no new thing" for them.

Explanation:

Eugenia W. Collier's short story "Marigold" revolves around the story of a young girl Lizabeth who is the narrator of our story. The story is in the form of reminiscing about the past and how she and her friends, family, and the whole community were living during the Great Depression.

The narrator was just a young girl living a life of a carefree child, unfamiliar with the real issues and conditions of life as a black person and during the Great Depression. But it wasn't entirely like she isn't familiar with the economic crisis, but more like the black community were so used to living a life of poverty that the Depression doesn't even seem like a new thing to them. Admitting that "Poverty was the cage in which we all were trapped", she also stated, "The Depression that gripped the nation was no new thing to us, for the black workers of rural Maryland had always been depressed."

She also points out "We children, of course, were only vaguely aware of the extent of our poverty. Having no radios, few newspapers, and no magazines, we were somewhat unaware of the world outside our community." This might have been one of the reasons why she wasn't aware of the crisis, along with the fact that she was just a young, carefree girl living and enjoying her childhood.