’’The Man Who Loved Flowers’’

In the book, The Man Who loved Flowers, the third person narrator follows a young man in New York, on an early evening in May of 1963. We get to know that the young man is dressed in a light grey suit, narrow tie, top collar bottom undone, and that his hair is dark and short cut. The thoughts of his surroundings, when he passes them on his walk through New York’s streets are that he is a young man which is in love. When the young man stopped by the flower vendor and through the conversation, it has now become clear that he actually is in love. After he purchased the flowers, he continues his walk. Suddenly in middle of his walk, he turns into an alley. Some moments later, he sees a woman in the alley, rushes up to her and are about to handing her the flowers while saying ‘’I have bought some flowers for you, Norma’’. The woman denies that her name is Norma, just when she is about to tell her real name, the man reaches out for his hammer. After a few swings with his hammer, he ends up killing the woman, only because she is not Norma. The young man is smiling while he is leaving the alley. We got to know from the narrator that, Norma is a woman that died 10 years ago, and that the young man still thinks that she is waiting for him somewhere. This short story is definitely a love story, maybe even a horror love story.

Early in the story we get don’t get to hear much about the main character, which in this story of course is the ‘’Young man’’. We get to hear that the young man is ignoring the radio. Even though the speaker is talking about a hammer murderer, but nothing indicates at that time that it is him. He seems like a shy man, because he is not talking a lot, and when he finally says something his sentences are short. An of that example is when he is talking with vendor and his response to the price of the flowers are just ‘’Expensive’’ (P. 2 L 3). The main question I ask myself when I think about the young man is, why is he searching for Norma, and why is he killing every woman on his way that denies that their name is Norma. One could say that he is just a psychopath, that will most likely be right. Since his only reason to kill innocent women, is because of their name.