In Deacon King Kong, flowers and plants represent the persistence of love between people, as well as a person’s capacity to persist and heal in the aftermath of hardship. Throughout the novel, Sportcoat is the character who is best with plants. However, Sportcoat has also been reeling with grief ever since the death of his wife, Hettie, who may have died by suicide (the novel never explicitly reveals whether Hettie’s death by drowning was intentional or an accident). Throughout the novel, Sportcoat helps others with plants, particularly Mrs. Elefante, who claims that pokeweed, a plant she and Sportcoat gather together, is good for the heart. Notably, the heart, is the human organ that people conventionally associate with love. Thus, Mrs. Elefante’s claim that pokeweed is good for the heart takes on literal and figurative meaning, referring both to its ability to improve a person’s cardiovascular health and to improve their emotional wellbeing.
Although Sportcoat enjoys the time he spends gardening and searching for plants, he never maintains any plants of his own, suggesting that his heart is still broken. At the end of the novel, Sportcoat has a conversation with an imaginary version of Hettie who tells him that he disappointed her during their marriage because he stopped growing flowers and took up drinking instead. As he began to drink more and garden less, Hettie stopped loving Sportcoat and eventually died by suicide. However, after learning of Hettie’s disappointment, Sportcoat swears off drinking and once again grows flowers in Hettie’s honor, symbolizing his enduring love for Hettie and his capacity to heal in the aftermath of her death.
Flowers Quotes in Deacon King Kong
“In the middle of the night, she shook me woke. I opened my eyes and seen a light floating ’round the room. It was like a little candlelight. ’Round and ’round it went, then out the door. Hettie said, ‘That’s God’s light. I got to fetch some moonflowers out the harbor.’ She put on her coat and followed it outside.”
Greed, he thought wryly as he dug into the earth. That’s the disease. I got it myself.
“The man who come here to New York wasn’t the man I knowed in South Carolina. In all the years we been here, ain’t been a plant in that house of ours. Not a green thing hung from the ceiling nor the wall, other than what I brung in from time to time.”
Then he patted me on the back and said, “Look after them moonflowers behind the church for my Hettie.” Then he walked into the water. Walked right into the harbor holding that bottle of King Kong. I said, “Wait a minute, Sport, that water’s cold.” But he went on ahead.
First it come up to his hips, then to his waist, then to the top of his arms, then to his neck. When it got to his neck he turned around to me and said, “Sausage, the water is so warm! It’s beautiful.”
Flowers Symbol Timeline in Deacon King Kong
