Lizabeth destroys the marigolds because she is angry with her father and she wants to spite him. She also feels that the marigolds represent her mother’s love for her father, which she believes is false. Lizabeth wants to forget about her mother and the happy times they had together. She also believes that the marigolds are a symbol of her mother’s weakness. Lizabeth destroys the marigolds because she wants her father to know that she is strong and can take care of herself. She also wants to show her father that she is not a child anymore.
Lizabeth has been feeling ignored by both of her parents lately, but especially by her father, who has been spending more time at work than he has at home. He spends most of his time working on his farm—which he bought from his brother after he died—and has been neglecting his family in order to focus on making money for himself, which causes L Elizabeth feels that he does not care about them anymore since he barely spends any time with them, so she goes into town one day when no one else is home and starts destroying all of Marigold’s flowers with a shovel until they are completely destroyed.
