The Man Who Loved Flowers

Thomas Mahoney 2-15-13 ENG 112 The Man Who Loved Flowers This composition starts let on in a very peaceful innocent setting, in New York City. There is a nose come forward of love in the air, and the smell of take a hop. There is a man walking along the streets in a gray streets turning everyones attention because then contri plainlye tell he is happy and in love. This account takes place in May of 1963 right before the summer starts. Stephen powerfulness is extremely descriptive in the story with the mans appearance He had that look rough him.He was dressed in a light gray-headed suit, the narrow tie pulled down a little, his top collar besideston undone. His hair was dark and fill out short. His complexion was fair, his eyes a light blue. Not an extraordinary face, but on this well-to-do opening evening, on this avenue, in May of 1963, he was beautiful( office) The interesting thing about this story is how it seems so beautiful and peaceful, but draws a thin line with madness.The first sense of something being wrong in the story is when the man goes to buy flowers, and there is a radio playing a news computer program talking about a malleus murder that was on the loose, but this is immediately dismissed because everything seems so perfect in the moment. As the man walks away he hesitates and touches something in his shift, which foreshadows what could happen later in the story. The young man passed the flower-stand and the sound of the bad news faded. He hesitated, looked over his shoulder, and sentiment it over.He reached into his coat pocket and touched the something in there again. For a moment his face seemed puzzled, lonely, almost haunted, and then, as his hand left over(p) the pocket, it regained its former expression of eager expectation. (King) The imagery in this story is so beautiful and down to hide out for almost the whole story, until it becomes dark and depressing at the end. King goes from writing about flowers, the beauti ful spring weather, love being in the air, kids loving life and playing, to a hammer, blood everywhere, dark alleys, creepy vibes, and a presence of death.When the story turns from afternoon to night is when the man goes to visit Norma, the love of his life. This is when the story turns dark. They grow blind drunk together, and the c standr they get, he realizes that the woman is not Norma, in fact, Norma had been dead for Ten years. He handed her the flowers though and she denied him and gave them back. She thanks him and begins to explains that she is not Norma, but he cuts her off mid sentence and whispers Norma(King)as he pulls the hammer out of his pocket. This gives an extremely creepy mood to the story abruptly. She backed away, her face a round white blur, her embouchure an opening black 0 of terror, and she wasnt Norma, Norma was dead, she had been dead for ten years, and it didnt matter because she was going to scream and he swung the hammer to stop the scream, to kill the scream, and he swung the hammer the spill of flowers fell out of his hand, the spill spilled and broke open, spilling red, white, and jaundiced tea roses beside the dented trash cans where the cats made alien love in the dark, screaming in love, screaming, screaming. (King) King brings up how hard it is to love to the reviewer during this part of the story by being extremely descriptive and frighten. He shows how hard life is to move on once youre in love and then you lose the one love. This is one of the hardest things for people to deal with in life. The name of the character is revealed at the end of the story, King calls him Love. He presents the idea that love makes you do insane things that you would never do if you werent in love, and it can take over youre somebodyality and change your life.At this point in the story, King confuses the reader by making them realize how misleading the story was from the parentage. It gives a sense of the unknown to the reader and leave s them questioning how it went from being so positive to negative in a matter of seconds. There are some small hints that he foreshadows in the beginning of the story but nothing too evident. His own smile trembled a little, and he felt a moments disquiet. Her face over the sailor blouse suddenly seemed blurred. It was getting darker now. . . could he have been nonsensical?Surely not. It was Norma. (King) It is a crazy and unexpected change of events when it goes from having the reader believe that it is a typical gracious man that is in love, and all the sudden the reader discovers he was the hammer murderer. Thats what makes this a great story because it is so misleading at first. King is so creative in the way he makes you conceptualize when you are reading the story, he knows how to get inside the readers head and really make them take about the thin line between fear and love, and how easily that line is broken. None of it seemed real, none of it seemed to matter. The air w as soft and sweet. Two men with beer bellies stood outside a bakery, pitching nickels and ribbing each other. Spring trembled on the butt against of summer, and in the city, summer is the season of dreams. (King) It would take a genius to predict that the man in the beginning of the story ended up being a killer at the end, it is hard to even believe. it makes you think that allone you see walking on the street could be a killer like that, and you would never know.The fact that King doesnt provide the main character with a name further proves the point that and unsuspecting person could be a cold hearted killer. This is another reason King is such a great writer, he is so clever with the way he tells his stories and all of the minor details he provides. He creates a character that seems to be a typical everyday male that is in love with a girl, but underneath that he is a murderer. This brings me back the my thesis of how thin the line between love and insanity is.I love the way t he mood suddenly switches and smoothly King makes the transition into a dark frightening story. His name was love, and he walked these dark streets because Norma was waiting for him. And he would find her. Some day soon. He began to smile. A bounce came into his step as he walked on down Seventy-third Street. A middle-aged married meet sitting on the steps of their building watched him go by, head cocked, eyes afar away, a half-smile on his lips. when he had passed by the woman said, How come you never look that way any more?Huh? , Nothing, she said, but she watched the young man in the grey suit disappear into the gloom of the encroaching night and thought that if there was anything more beautiful than springtime, it was young love. (King) This is a great way to end the story because it presents the reader with a sense of hope, and brings back the sense of beauty that started the story. King is a writer unlike any other, he makes the reader think in ways that make them question th ere own life.