What is the significance of the noose in "The Flowers" by Alice Walker?

It isn't just the discovery of a human skull that changes Myop. She is “unafraid” and only gives “a little yelp of surprise” having stepped on the skull.

It’s the noose that finally establishes the point that the skull belongs to the man that was lynched to death. As soon as Myop is able to relate “the rotted remains of the noose” with the “frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled” piece of a rope “around an...

It isn't just the discovery of a human skull that changes Myop. She is “unafraid” and only gives “a little yelp of surprise” having stepped on the skull.

It’s the noose that finally establishes the point that the skull belongs to the man that was lynched to death. As soon as Myop is able to relate “the rotted remains of the noose” with the “frayed, rotted, bleached, and frazzled” piece of a rope “around an overhanging limb of a great spreading oak” and the dead man, the noose acquires a deeper significance.

Now, the noose lies on the ground as a grim reminder of violence and hatred. It's like a lens through which Myop gets an actual glimpse of the world she belongs to. It carries her from her myopic and self-constructed pristine world, consisting only of nature in its beautiful and harmless forms, to the real world of ruthlessness and hatred.

In the story, the noose is a very important and powerful image as it’s through the noose that Myop unmasks the ugly yet true face of the world that surrounds her. It shakes Myop from within and leads her into a complete transformation that she wasn't prepared for. Now, she is out of the non-existent idyllic world and stands stupefied confronting the real world.