Proposed Paper Topic: For this project I have chosen the word flower(s) from Alice Notley’s, The Descent of Alette.
Personal Definition of Flower(s): When I think of the word flower or flowers I think of innocence, like with flower girls in a wedding or a parent referring to their daughter as their little flower. I also associate flowers with the seventies and the whole peace/hippie movement when women would wear flower crowns and refer to themselves as a “flower child.” Flowers could also be used as a euphemism for the female genitalia, which links it to purity, femininity, and virginity. In their literal sense flowers are often bought to be given as gifts to show love, appreciation, and respect. For instance, flowers are typically gifted to women on Valentine’s Day or after a date. They are also given to musicians, actors, and other performers after their performances. When they are still in the Earth, in gardens and part of plants, they can be viewed as essential, because they release oxygens. Extracted flowers do not seem to have an immediate function, they are typically just set on display and used for decoration like in wedding bouquets, corsages, or funeral memorials. In general, flowers come in a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. Flowers can also be personified and given the…show more content… After the woman’s baby is taken she is sad, but then begins to cradle something that everyone sees as a flower, while the woman sees it as a, “the burning flower of” “herself gone” “her life” In its use as the object everyone else sees other than the person cradling it, I think this flower represents the woman’s purity. Babies are seen as pure, because they are essentially new and have done no wrong, I think that is what the baby was to the woman, but then she set it on fire, leading her to lose her baby, her clean slate, her
