Hagar returned to the Shipley place, she found all her flowers were dead. Her lilacs were “burnt yellow, and the branches snapped if you touched them.,”(169) and her marigolds, which she always took care of were “a dead loss.” (169) The death of these flowers showed that a person cannot live an artificial life, since her marigolds were cultivated continuously. Hagar lived her life artificially, with very little naturalness or spontaneity. She suppressed her enjoyment of a free life for the sake of appearances. When Hagar left for her final journey of self-discovery, she realizes she has led a poor, artificial life. Although she realizes this very late in her life, she tries to do away with this pretentiousness. When Hagar is at the cannery she uses this time alone to be herself. The June bugs she places in her hair help her to be free.I take off my hat - it’s hardly suitable for here, anyway, a prim domestic hat sprouting cultivated flowers. Then with considerablecare I arrange the jade and copper pieces in my hair. I glance into my purse mirror. The effect is pleasing. They liven my grey,transform me. (216)Hagar realizes she is happier living the life she wants to live. When she takes off her domestic hat it is like she is letting go of who she was. She feels alive with the June bugs in her hair. They allow her to escape from the real world and slip into a world where she is a happy person who does not care what other people think of her. The flowers held Hagar back until she realized she can be free. The water imagery was presented many times throughout the novel to help develop the theme of death. Water is viewed as the center of life since, without it, life would cease to exist. This is evident when the drought occurred in Manawaka. Hagar returned during the drought to find all of Shipley’s flowers and vegetables dead. “They’d had no water this year,” Hagar s...
