Mariah, Lucy, and Daffodils

Mariah and Lucy are two individuals who come from extremely different backgrounds. The affluent upbringing of Mariah causes her outlook on things to contrast Lucy's ideas and views. Mariah sees the daffodils and plowed fields as a beautiful part of nature. Lucy views daffodils as an object of a poem she was forced to memorize about a flower not found in her home country. Her hatred towards this flower intensifies when Mariah takes her to a garden in hopes to change her outlook. I realized that this is one of the many recurring examples of Mariah trying to change Lucy's feelings and attitudes to mirror her own. Instead of conforming to the ideals of Mariah, Lucy states that she wanted to "kill them. " To Lucy the daffodils represent sorrow and bitterness. To Mariah they are nothing more than a beautiful flower. These flowers symbolize the different perspectives of these two characters, and they show how the same object can have various meanings for different people. The importance does not lie on the actually flower; it lies on the emotional influence it has on Lucy and Mariah.