Snowdrops

Discuss the snowdrops a symbol or metaphor:

The snowdrops represent the boy and Miss Webster’s fragility throughout the story. Both characters are withered and can break easily, when faced with pain and despair, just like the snowdrops, as you can “see their fragility.” They both have been shoved into a world they are unfamiliar with and must learn to adapt, or else they will continue to fall, and fall until they have hit the ground rock solid, and won’t be able to get back on their feet. Despite this anguish, they are both waiting for the best out of life, and are waiting to blossom into something beautiful and amazing, just like the flowers.

The snowdrops also symbolise the harsh reality of death. Although the story doesn’t clearly outline the theme of death, the story is very much based on it, and how Miss Wester and the boy deal with death. For Miss Webster, despite her best efforts to stay strong for the children, she “continued to cry aloud in the midst of the frightened children,” and fall to her lowest point, just as the snowdrops. For the boy, it was just about understanding the pain of death. Despite all the misery that death brought, is a Rae of hope, that one day their pain and understanding of death will vanish and they will blossom like snowflakes.

The Boy:

The boy in the story is a very curious and imaginative child. He sees the world as this great, big amazing place, which has so much to offer him. He is oblivious to the pain, suffering and death that surround him every day. He is at the age where he thinks life is a happy adventure, and he spends each day waiting for something magical to occur in his life. The boy is naive, and believes what he is told. He doesn’t realise that the world isn’t a fairytale.

The boy get’s mesmerized at the simplest things, such as Bacon. He describes the taste as “new and marvellous.” He even found his mum’s knitting miraculous, as he believed “a row of knitting grew magically behind him.” What he doesn’t realise is he is less mature than some of the kids in his class, and things like bacon, aren’t so extraordinary to them.

Whilst the boy is drawing his robin, the reader’s get a sense of the boy’s maturity at the slightest degree. Just by watching a robin that came to his garden every day, “he knew just how low the bird’s head fitted on his round little body.” He now knew how to draw a complete robin, whereas at Christmas, when he drew his last robin, he didn’t draw it to the best of his ability. It seems as though the boy is coming out of his protective bubble and seeing the world from another light, and noticing the things around him.

It is not until the end of the story that the reader’s truly understand that the boy has matured, and is to a certain degree aware of the pain and death circulating him. He understands that everything isn’t perfect and beautiful, and that the world we live in is not a Utopian society. The boy “began to see their fragility,” meaning the flowers, and finally understood, at that moment that the world wasn’t perfect.

Edmund:

Edmund is far more mature than the boy in the story, and is less naive and sheltered like the boy. He understands that the world is not a perfect place, and people are faced with death at some point in their lives. That’s just how life is. At the end of the novel, when the boy is ecstatic about seeing the snowdrops, and is unaware of the misery around him Edmund notices “it’s a funeral.” He doesn’t see the world for some magical, made-up place where pain and anguish doesn’t exist. Not everything amazes him like it does for the boy, as evident when he told him “it’s only bacon.” To him it is nothing out of the ordinary. Furthermore, Edmund understands the world and what goes on around him, and knows it is not a fairytale.

Miss Webster:

Miss Webster is a lost and fragile woman, due to the death of the Meredith boy. The reader is given the impression that she was involved with the boy, on a personal note in some way. Miss Webster represents the flowers in the story, as she is very delicate and broken, just like them. She is waiting for hope and happiness to come her way, so she can blossom again.

She never wanted to see the flowers because she thought they were beautiful, or because she wanted to make the children happy. She took the children to see the snowdrops only to see the boy’s funeral. She could not be physically at the funeral, possibly because she did not want others knowing about her relationship with the boy, so watching from the gate was her way of being there. It was her way of saying goodbye. “Dressed in a black frock, without any jewellery,” it was like her own funeral by the gate. Even with the children around her, Miss Webster “continued to dry aloud in the midst of the frightened children,” while watching the funeral in her own world.

Opinion about the story:

Overall I quite like the story. I thought it was a great contrast between the child and adult world. I enjoyed the fact that it was like a child trapped inside his own little world, unaware of the sadness that surrounded him. It makes you wonder what children a really feeling and understand at a time like death. What they must be feeling? I think, like the boy they interpret it their own way, but deep inside they understand what is going on around them.