Questions – Marigolds
1.1 The answers to the following questions can be found in the text:
a) Who is telling the story?
b) What time in her life is the narrator telling about?
c) Why does the narrator become upset in the middle of the night?
d) Why does Miss Lottie’s garden become completely barren?
e) Where does the narrator live?
f) Why are the narrator and her brother, Joey, alone every day?
g) Why do the children go to Miss Lottie’s house?
1.2 In your own words:
a) Write a description of Miss Lottie.
1.3 What do the following phrases mean:
a) p. 78 "…tragicomic spectacle..." What is comic and what is tragic about the children?
INFERENTIAL QUESTIONS
2.1 What does the narrator mean when she says, “old fears have a way of clinging like cobwebs”?
2.2 Why do the children pick on Miss Lottie?
2.3 The narrator of the story struggles internally after the attack on Miss Lottie. What feelings are the
root of her conflict?
2.4 How does the narrator change when she comes face to face with Miss Lottie? What does she
recognize in Miss Lottie’s face?
2.5 Why does the narrator destroy the marigolds?
EVALUATIVE QUESTIONS
3.1 What do you think the marigolds symbolize to Miss Lottie and to the narrator when she was a
grown-up?
3.2 Why does Miss Lottie never plan marigolds again, despite the narrator’s “wild contrition” – her
sincere remorse?
3.3 Why do you think the narrator means at the end of the story when she says she too has planted
marigolds?
3.4 The narrator’s “wild contrition” does not seem to make Miss Lottie feel better or want to go back to
raising marigolds. What do you think is the best way to make it up to someone we have deliberately
hurt? What should we do if that person still doesn’t forgive us?