Answer:
Compassion is what led Lizabeth's revelation about what she had done.
Explanation:
"This was the beginning of compassion, and one cannot have both compassion and innocence."
Lizabeth is the narrator and main character in the short story "Marigolds", by Eugenia Collier. It is the adult Lizabeth narrating the revelation she had at the age of 14, after destroying the garden of marigolds her neighbor, Miss Lottie, grew with so much care.
Before this event, Lizabeth and the other children would tease Miss Lottie, calling her a witch, and throwing stones at her property. They live in an extremely poor neighborhood, and the story is set during the Great Depression. Everything is dilapidated, the only beauty being the Miss Lottie's garden. When Lizabeth hear her father's words of desperation for not being able to provide for his family, she gets angry. Her rage is what drives her to destroy the beautiful garden, as if Lizabeth did not want anyone to have beauty and happiness if she and her family could not have it.
However, for the first time in her life, Lizabeth understands the cruelty of what she has done. It was "the beginning of compassion" and the end of her childish innocence. Lizabeth finally understands why Miss Lottie's has the marigolds. It is precisely because life is miserable and difficult, because the world is ruthless. It was the only source of solace and beauty the woman had, and it was now gone. Compassion, shame, awkwardness arise in Lizabeth. Her understanding of the world is now different, new.
Options:
A remembering the events of that day with adult eyes
B looking into Miss Lottie's eyes and seeing her in a new way
C discussing it with her parents after Miss Lottie told them what she had done
D watching Joey's face change from joy to sadness as he realized what she had done
Answer:
B. looking into Miss Lottie's eyes and seeing her in a new way.
Explanation:
What actually led to Lizabeth's revelation about what she had done is at the point she looked into Miss Lottie's eyes and saw her in a new way.
Below is an excerpt that supports that:
“For as I gazed at the immobile face with the sad, weary eyes, I gazed upon a kind of reality which is hidden to childhood. The witch was no longer a witch but only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility. She had been born in squalor and lived in it all her life. Now at the end of that life she had nothing except a falling- down hut, a wrecked body, and John Burke, the mindless son of her passion. Whatever verve there was left in her, whatever was of love and beauty and joy that had not been squeezed out by life, had been there in the marigolds she had so tenderly cared for."
When Lizabeth looked at the face of Miss Lottie, she saw her in a different and new way. She was no longer the witch Lizabeth knew her to be. Her eyes was filled with compassion as she saw a broken woman who stood before her. She saw Miss Lottie as an old woman whose precious possession, the marigolds have been destroyed and she was left with nothing.
At this point, Lizabeth understood the cruelty of what she has done. She discovered that the marigolds were Miss Lottie's only source of solace and beauty in a world that was ruthless and difficult.
