he flower imagery aids the story by showing the two opposing ways to live your life. In the novel there is imagery of wild flowers and of cultivated flowers. Much like people, some are wild and others are tame or predictable. Hagar lived most of her life like a cultivated flower. Her inner responses are natural and wild; however, externally she acts rationally and tamely in fear of her overall appearance being effected if she acted spontaneously. Cultivated flowers symbolize death in that they are not permitted to grow freely and naturally, the very cause of their existence is being destroyed by their unnaturalness. The perfume "Lily of the Valley", which was given to Hagar by her granddaughter, Tina, was a symbol of death. Hagar says to herself, "I would not expect her to know that the lilies of the valley, so white and almost too strongly sweet, were the flowers we used to weave into the wreaths for the dead." (pg. 28). This was foreshadowing Hagar's death). Hagar held a high affection for lilacs, the flowers which grew at the Shipley place. These flowers were not taken care of and they "hung like bunches of mild mauve grapes". (pg.25). Similarly, Hagar did not care about living a normal, natural life, which caused her to be in miserable conditions, much like the lilacs. When Hagar returned to the Shipley place years later, all the flowers were dead. Her lilacs were "burnt yellow, and the branches snapped if you touched them," (pg. 150) and her marigolds, which she always took care of, were "a dead loss". (pg. 150). The death of her marigolds showed how creating life artificially will not work, since her marigold were cultivated continuously. Hagar's life was lived artificially, with very little naturalness or spontaneity, thus she stifled her enjoyment of a free life for the sake of appearances. When Hagar went off on her final journey of self-discovery, she realizes she has led a poor, artificial life and although this ...
