Revision Guide: Flowers by Robin Jenkins
Jenkins' short story clearly displays his anti-war sentiments. He uses symbolism to convey these feelings and the characters to allow readers to question their own values and ideas.
CHARACTERS
MISS LAING represents the blind patriotism of her generation. She is seen to be "white-haired", allowing the reader to realise she is of an older generation, and therefore witnessed WWI; this partly explains her patriotic nature. She regards the fighter planes as "flowers", the soldiers as heroes, and strongly feels that they are doing the right thing in fighting the Germans.
MARGARET is the tool through which Jenkins reveals his message about how he regards the war. She is first introduced as a rebel, a "red-eyed dissenter" who is obviously isolated from the group. She is a Lowlander, and the other Highland children are traditional Gaelic speakers. She finds the language "mysterious and hateful to her Lowland ears".
The colour red is often associated with Margaret and this use of colour symbolises her anger at being left alone in the Highlands. Obviously we can see that this is for her own good, but Margaret is only a child and misses the familiarity of Glasgow. Her landscape is unfamiliar and frightening, and she sees not the greenery, but "red velvety foliage" and "bell heather streaming like fire".
She is wary of her surroundings, finding them "queer" and this fear is intensified by Miss Laing's constant warnings about snakes, jellyfish and "unexploded bombs".
In the story Margaret finds herself becoming aware; she loses her innocence through a moment of crashing reality. This occurs when she sees the dead airmen and therefore is shown graphically the brutality of war: it is not glorious, it is gruesome.
SYMBOLISM
Jenkins' use of symbolism is essential to the comprehension of his message. He uses traditional symbols to represent his thoughts. There are three main areas on which you should comment:
Flowers Snake Colours
FLOWERS
We can trace the symbol of the flower throughout the story. The first reference comes from Miss Laing. She compares the airmen to flowers:
"'There they are children,' she cried. 'There are the true flowers of our country, the most precious, the most beautiful. Wave to them.'"
The flowers are subsequently associated with Miss Laing as she has asked the children to pick some. This is where Margaret represents Jenkins' views; she refuses to pick the flowers, saying:
"It was silly anyhow picking wild flowers... Miss Laing would just show off by telling their names, and then she'd either throw them out or else put them into a vase where in a day they'd wither."
In other words, if the flowers represent the soldiers, Margaret is concerned for their safety; Jenkins is commenting that the airmen die prematurely. Consider the connotations of picking a flower: this kills it and removes something beautiful from the world. Think about how this relates to Jenkins' beliefs.
The final mention of flowers is when Margaret finds the yellow flower at her feet. This incident comes directly after she attacks the adder and serves as a device to calm her. The colour yellow is a peaceful colour. She recognises in this flower her own loneliness and isolation. The flower now represents her innocence and this "moved her instead to stoop, tenderly pluck it, and hold it against her cheek." At the end when she sub-consciously crushes the flower in her hand she has metaphorically crushed her own innocence – in other words she has lost the childish naivety displayed throughout the story after being exposed to the true horror of war.
SNAKES
The snake is traditionally a symbol of evil and of temptation. It is a biblical symbol which stands for Knowledge – where the knowledge is dangerous.- The snake[1] in this story symbolises the way Jenkins regards the German population; although the snake is harmless, minding its own business and poses no threat, Margaret feels compelled to attack it because she has been told they are dangerous. This is therefore like the anti-German propaganda fed to the British public during the war.
When Margaret hits the snake and it bleeds, she notices that it has red blood like her. This surprises her as she feels that a creature so different to her could not possibly have anything in common with her. She therefore learns that she has something in common with the enemy. Note the colours of the snake (green and black) are similar to those of German soldiers’ camouflage uniforms
COLOURS
RED: Associated with anger, danger, blood.
oMargaret is a `red-eyed dissenter'.
oThe surroundings are red and like fire.
oThe birds have red beaks and scream a warning.
YELLOW: Peaceful colour
oThe flower is yellow. This section changes the mood of the story.
o" The airman has blonde hair, connoting innocence and peace.
ENDING
It is important to note that the ending is deliberately graphic to shock the reader, making it clear exactly how Jenkins feels about war:
"...the fingers of his right hand, flung out in the shallow water, were gleaming bones. A sweet nasty smell mingled with the tang of the sea."
The bodies are described as having no faces:
"One of the airmen, with fair hair, had no face at all: while the other's face was half gone, and what remained was unrecognisable as human."
Jenkins is therefore saying that war has no human face; it is a mechanism which disregards humanity. He is also clearly saying that the individual victims of war are not considered – the victims are nameless, unknown.Finally Margaret is pushed to tell Miss Laing what she has discovered to shock her but is halted when the realisation of what she has witnessed strikes her, and she finds she has crushed the flower, her innocence.
[1]Adam and Eve are tempted by the devil in the form of a snake in Genesis; the snake makes them aware of their own nakedness, and gives them pain and death. It brings them Knowledge.