Content Warning: The source material contains descriptions of child neglect, abuse, trauma, and child death.

The beauty and fragrance of roses are often associated with love and its transformative power. However, roses also contain thorns that emblemize that life and love involve pain. Before Georgie even wins the rosebush, the promise of owning something gives him hope, and he clings to the lottery ticket, reciting its numbers like a prayer or chant. To the bystander, the scraggly rosebush doesn’t look like much of a prize, but to Georgie, it represents the tender shoot of hope still inside him. For Georgie, winning the rosebush is the first good thing that has ever happened to him: “Of all good things on earth, a rosebush. The whole world set up singing as Georgie clutched the prize against his chest” (27). He whisks the shrub away, desperate to protect it and secure fertile ground where it can thrive. Like Georgie, however, there is no safe place for the delicate plant, and he is forced to carry it home. Winning the rosebush quickly becomes a curse as it dooms Georgie to receive a beating from Steve so severe that it sends him to the hospital. The landlord tosses the rosebush in the trash, and Georgie, too, feels he’s been disposed of and left to wither away alone: “Unmindful of the thorns, he buried his face against it in a spasm of love and relief” (41).