The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

“Be good, darling, her mother implored as she brushed Alice’s cheek with her lips. She smelled like jasmine, and fear.”

Agnes is characterized through her kind dialogue and gentle actions. The use of fear as a scent creates a unique and visceral description of Agnes’s hypervigilance, as well as Alice’s ability to pick up on her mother’s emotional states.

“The sight filled Alice with the kind of green hope she found at the bottom of rock pools at low tide but never managed to cup in her hands.”

Alice’s admiration for her mom’s happiness in the garden illustrates the theme of Relationships with the Natural World. The metaphor fits Ringland’s literary style and offers natural, tangible image of childhood wonder.

“Being around [Clem] was like being outside without shelter during stormy weather, always watching the sky.”

Alice monitors Clem’s abusive episodes, learning to stay mindful and cautious. She and Agnes live in constant fear, always trying to read Clem’s volatile moods. This metaphor establishes Clem’s temperamental personality through a comparison to the landscape and foreshadows the way Alice will similarly tiptoe around Dylan’s volatility by monitoring her own actions.

“You were the true love I needed to wake me from a curse, Bun. You’re my fairytale.”

Agnes’s words reveal her forte for storytelling and how her words stay with Alice forever. Alice repeats this fairy tale about her saving her mother from the brink of death during childbirth, creating a positive history in which Alice is the hero. The symbols of fairy tales continue throughout the novel.

“She knew better than anybody that sometimes words did more damage than good.”

Twig’s internal thoughts highlight her wisdom, as she doesn’t push June to talk any more when she’s upset. People needing time and space, rather than talking, is a lesson Twig and others learn through The Long Process of Overcoming Grief and Trauma.

“Thornfield had always been a place where flowers and women could bloom. Every woman who came to Thornfield was given the opportunity to grow beyond the things in life that had trampled her.”

Describing the farm as a place of hope and healing highlights the stories of the many women who found solace at Thornfield. Every person at Thornfield, including Alice, has endured some trauma and needs to heal through tending the land. Paradoxically, though, June’s secrecy about the farm’s and family’s history makes it impossible for Alice to cultivate what she needs—answers—there.

“Flowers are my family, [June] was often heard to say, with a sweep of her arm towards the fields and the women at her table.”

The planted flowers are important symbols of their secret language and nature’s ability to heal. The Flower women are also representative of the theme of family. Thus, it is surprising when June arrives with Alice, who is her blood family and a source of mystery to the others at the farm.

“‘[June] presses every one and casts it in clear resin, then seals it in silver.’ Candy returned the bangle to its place on the bench. Alice inspected the rainbow of other flowers pressed in necklace pendants, earrings and rings. Each one was sealed forever, frozen in time while still coloured with life. They would never turn brown or waste away. They would never decay, or die.”

The flowers provide a way for June and the other women heal through creativity and nature. Not only is June’s creativity shown here, but so too is Alice’s thoughtfulness. Thinking about how the flowers will never die relates to the theme of trauma, loss, and grief—Alice wishes her parents could have been safely encased too.

“She wanted to wear this secret language of flowers, to say for her all the things her voice wouldn’t.”

Alice’s desire to speak through flowers reveals her willingness to learn and gives her a means of communication when she is unable to use her voice. Speaking through plants is a coping mechanism at first, but the language becomes more meaningful and helpful to her even after her voice returns.

“Was a river a thing that could ever be owned? Wouldn’t that be like someone trying to say they owned the sea? Alice knew that when you were in it, the sea owned you.”

Alice’s ideas, even as a child, reflect depth and a respect for the natural world. She’s curious and intelligent enough to question ownership rights and wise enough to respect nature’s power. Her perspective highlights her relationship with nature—she believes nature is free, unable to be owned, as she wants to be someday too.

“But guilt was a strange seed; the deeper you buried it, the harder it fought to grow.”

Alice and June both experience repeated guilt. The Impact of Secrets is apparent, because the metaphor alludes to trying to bury the truth, as June does throughout Alice’s adolescence. The author employs figurative language when she compares guilt to a seed, suggesting that it, too, is capable of growth and endurance once “planted.”

“[A]s June herself knew, there wasn’t much in the world more threatening than a woman who knew her own mind.”

June’s controlling nature is clear in her worries over Alice, who is in love and becoming more independent. Given her interiority, June suggests that she’s scared to lose Alice and feeling threatened by her independence; however, her words also indicate that she recognizes the threat she poses to Alice, as well. Her fear foreshadows her later betrayal of having Oggi deported, all because she can’t let Alice be independent.

“The burden of her unrealised dreams hung heavily from her ribs, flattened by the weight of her sighs. She imagined them like pressed flowers, each one squashed while it was still blooming, a keepsake of what might have been.”

After receiving Oggi’s letter, Alice’s reaction is detailed with plant-based metaphors and similes to highlight the intensity of her emotional state. Like pressed flowers, her memories of Oggi will endure, though they will change and fade with time.

“If she could make a life for herself in a place where a grieving heart once hit the earth and grew into flowers, maybe everything she’d left behind could be transformed into something meaningful too.”

Alice relates her life to the story of the Aboriginal goddess, a tale that inspires and influences her decision to live in the desert. Her excitement foreshadows how she’ll transform herself in the desert, as well as exemplifying the motif of storytelling.

“Guerrero del fuego. Fire warrior. Lulu had never been able to connect a vision to someone she knew. Until she met Alice Hart.”

Lulu’s interpretation of Alice relates to the symbol of fire and reveals insight about Lulu’s visions. Her rare ability connects her to Alice, foreshadowing their friendship and Alice’s connection to fire. Notably, Lulu has Mexican heritage—her visions exemplify the conventions of magical realism, a literary genre popularized in Latin America. Within this genre, otherwise realistic settings and plots are infused with supernatural or magical elements.

“Have courage, take heart.

The force of her yearning for her mother, for her grandmother, and the women she’d left behind tore through her without warning or mercy. She gasped from the pain, biting hard down on her lip until she tasted blood.”

The Sturt desert pea flower carries the meaning of courage in Alice’s family, which brings back memories of her loved ones. The setting evokes her grief and losses but also forces her to face her pain through nature, a constant presence in her life.

“She saw something in Alice Hart, the kind of grit one survivor recognises in another. Ruby didn’t know what Alice was looking for, but it burned in her brightly enough to leave fire in her eyes.”

Ruby’s internal thoughts about Alice offer a secondary view on Alice’s journey of healing and identity. Ruby can tell that Alice has endured trauma and that she is searching for something she needs to heal. Like Lulu and later Alice herself, Ruby also characterizes Alice through the symbol of fire.

“Though his presence soothed painful memories she wanted to forget, every time they met, the life Alice had left behind began to creep like a vine into her heart, tendril by tendril and leaf by leaf, until she realised one day while they were talking that she was always mentally gathering him bouquets, silently telling him her deepest longings the only way she knew how: through the unspoken language of Australian native flowers.”

In this example of the language characteristic of literary fiction and Ringland’s style, the descriptions of imagery are specific and detailed. Using a long, fluid syntax, the author describes Alice’s thoughts and feelings in sensory detail using metaphors drawn from nature and flowers. No matter what, Alice always returns to flowers, showing how important the plants are to her and matching the language to her life.

“She sat in the warm water as he washed her skin with slow, gentle strokes. Murmured his love and apologies over her body like prayers. After a while he shed his clothes and got in with her. Alice relaxed in his arms, almost renewed, almost able to forget that he had caused the very harm he was trying to heal.”

The use of water as a source of comfort and healing repeats in Alice’s story. In this case, the water gives her solace, but Dylan’s presence taints it. His actions of remorse give hope that he won’t hurt Alice again, though her thoughts foreshadow that she will fall into a pattern of forgiving, forgetting, and internalizing his mistakes.

“What kind of disservice was she doing to their relationship if she didn’t trust that and believe in him?”

Alice’s fearful thoughts about Dylan foreshadow that he will become more dangerous. She becomes increasingly scared, just like her mother, in this cycle of abuse. Like Agnes, Alice keeps blaming herself for Dylan’s mistreatment. She interrogates her own behaviors, rather than Dylan’s, mistakenly believing that something she is doing leads to his abuse.

“‘[R]ight now, we have to give her the time she needs. To do what she needs to do.’

‘Which is?’

‘Live,’ Twig said simply. ‘You know that. Your head and heart aren’t talking sense to each other about this right now. She’s desperate to live her own story, and trust it enough to make mistakes and fuck up, and still know she’ll be okay.’”

While Candy wants to bring Alice home to Thornfield, Twig’s recognizes that Alice’s need for independence is just as important as “saving” her from the inevitable mistakes she will make in life. Her advice to Candy also relates to how Alice’s head and heart aren’t talking to each other in regard to Dylan.

“Her thoughts turned to Twig, Candy and June. Then, her mother. Always her mother. Always.”

While Alice thinks of all the women who raised her, Alice’s thoughts return to her mother the most often. Of all her trauma and losses, Alice takes the most time to let go of Agnes because they were so close, and because she feels guilty about the fire. Alice eventually can find closure, but she’ll never stop thinking of Agnes.

“I’ll love you all of my life, she whispered [to Dylan].

All of our lives, he’d replied. Kissed her as needily as if she were air.”

Alice and Dylan’s experience occasional moments of tenderness that suggest a love and passion for Alice that stands in sharp juxtaposition to his violence. The language delivers a romantic, affectionate tone with a metaphor that shows how desperately Dylan needs her. However, this “need” foreshadows his all-consuming control over her behaviors and location.