Flower Garden
by Shirley Jackson The
Flower Garden by Shirley Jackson is about two ladies that become friendly thru their mutual love of the small country cottage. Mrs. Winning has been admiring the small cottage located down the road from her large hillside home. She day dreams about how she would fix up the cottage if it were hers. Mrs. Winning loves the cottage so much that it brings her to become friendly with the new owner Mrs. Maclane. She enjoys seeing how Mrs. Maclane is fixing up the cottage. All is going great until Mrs. Maclane befriends a colored man and his son. Mrs. Winning is highly opposed to Mrs. Maclane’s kindness to the man. Mrs. Winnings dislike causes her to withdraw from the ladies friendship and her connection to the cottage and garden.
Mrs. Winning, the main characters in the story, is a protagonist character. She begins the story by telling of her life and ideas for the small cottage in her neighborhood that she dreams of having as her own. She describes her vision of the cottage as a small white building surrounded by roses, a garden around the back and the kitchen painted yellow. She befriends the new owner of the cottage, Mrs. Maclane, with the hopes of seeing her visions become reality. Mrs. Winning finds the company of a true, kind hearted lady. They spend much time together, getting along wonderfully, until, Mrs. Maclane shows the same kindness she has towards Mrs. Winning to a colored man and his son. That’s when Mrs. Winning becomes a protagonist character by instigating the conflict and changing her character. Mrs. Winning was so highly against the kindness being shown to the man, that she could no longer enjoy Mrs. Maclane and the cottage. This is fully evident by the end of the story when Mrs. Maclane and the colored man turn around to wave to Mrs. Winning. Mrs. Winning dose not wave or smile, instead she turns around and walks right back up the hill and into her big house on the hill.
