Myop’s confrontation with the grim and dark reality of the world surrounding her induced the change in her. So far cocooned in parental love and care, Myop had been living in her own innocent and beautiful world. The discovery of the skull of a black man introduces her to an altogether different world, that's filled with violence and hatred.
Until this discovery, Myop had lived in her little idyllic world. Flowers, “pretty ferns and leaves,”...
Myop’s confrontation with the grim and dark reality of the world surrounding her induced the change in her. So far cocooned in parental love and care, Myop had been living in her own innocent and beautiful world. The discovery of the skull of a black man introduces her to an altogether different world, that's filled with violence and hatred.
Until this discovery, Myop had lived in her little idyllic world. Flowers, “pretty ferns and leaves,” streams, the woods, “the warm sun” and the harmless birds and animals including chickens and pigs, and her mother were the only members of this world.
One day, while going back home from the woods, she accidentally stepped on a human skull. It was lying covered under leaves and twigs. Close to the skull was a tree, on one of its branches a rope was hanging. This clearly indicated that the skull belonged to a black person who must have been lynched.
Lynching African-Americans in public was quite common until mid-twentieth century. A black man could be lynched for practically no reason. It was a means to establish white supremacy over blacks.
The skull and the rope made it clear that a man was brutally murdered. She wasn't prepared to see this ugly face of the world that surrounded her. She was appalled and horrified. With this, her ideal world of innocence and beauty was shattered, leaving Myop a changed girl.
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