Lizabeth's final act of destruction was an outpouring of her anger over her circumstances...... a reaction to the changes in her home, her mother's strength, her father's weakness, and the topsy-turning world she could not control. Lizabeth destroyed the marigolds because she could..... their destruction was under her control. She destroyed them because they were beautiful...... something that didn't belong in the ugly world she lived in. She destroyed the beauty of the flowers because the beauty of her family had become something she couldn't understand and no longer recognized.