Enchi Fumiko 円地文子, "The Flower-Eating Crone" 「花食い姥」

Reading Analysis Questions

1. What do flowers represent in the story? Support your idea with examples from the text.

2. Who is the flower-eating crone? What does she represent and why does she eat flowers? 

3. What does the text say and/or imply about desire? What does the text say/imply about the relationship between old age, memory, and desire?

4. Describe the scene where the narrator is reminded of letters that she once wrote to a man. What significance does this scene have for the rest of the story?

5. When (where) does the scene in the park (p.178) take place? Who is the man that talks to her in the park?

6. What do you make of the exchange between the young man and the narrator at the end of the story? What might be the significance of this?

  

7. What do you think about the roles of art and literature in the text? Describe the roles of mediation and representation vis-a-vis its relationship to the actual object (e.g. object of desire, human emotions, etc.).

(A Christmas cactus; from nature-and-garden.com)