Flower Garden By Shirley Jackson

I read a short story called flower garden by Shirley Jackson. This story was about the friendship of two women, Mrs. Winning and Mrs. McLane. Mrs. McLane just moved from New York to a little cottage in the country. Mrs. Winning lived in the same part of town as Mrs. McLane but grew up there her whole life. The little cottage that Mrs. McLane moved into was great for a garden. After a few weeks Mrs. McLane and Mrs. Winning were becoming close friends. The people of the town were very nice to Mrs. McLane and always offered their help. Until one day Mrs. McLane hired a person of color to help her in the garden. After this happened no on in the neighborhood would talk to her and they wouldn’t include her five-year-old son Davey in parties and other Childs events.

In the beginning of the story the protagonist, Mrs. Winning seemed to me like a very old fashion women. The story says, “ and sometimes when they were washing dishes or shelling peas or polishing silverware together, their hands moving so quickly and similarly, communicated more easily and sympathetically then their mouth never could.” All the things that were listed in these quotes made me think that my grandmother would have done those things and my mother wouldn’t. It seemed to me that that was all she ever really did she didn’t have a life of her own.

In the middle of the story when Mrs. McLane hired a person of color to work in her garden, Mrs. Winning tried to tell her that it was a bad thing. In that time, I am guessing it was a couple decades ago, having black people work for you was a bad thing and unexpected in society.