Character Analysis
If you missed the opening credits, you might not even realize that the youngest Cameron daughter is named Flora—she's exclusively referred to as "little sister" or simply "sis" during the film. That's quite fitting, actually—Flora is less of a unique character than a heavy-handed symbol of Southern innocence.
Sibling City
For the most part, Flora is depicted through her relationship with her older bro Ben. We see letters that she writes him while he's at war. We see her put on a "special dress" to read his responses. We even see her adorn her now-shabby clothing with raw cotton in order to look presentable when he returns. It almost seems like a romantic relationship at times.
Later, during the Reconstruction, Flora inadvertently catches the eye of Gus, a black soldier. Seemingly bolstered by the new law allowing interracial marriage, Gus follows Flora into the woods to ask for her hand in marriage. She's not into the idea. Flora runs and runs and runs until she reaches the side of a cliff.
And here's what she says:
FLORA: Stay away or I'll jump!
And then she does.
A Wilted Flower
While this is supposed to read as a tragedy, it provides a pretty good metaphor for racism. Though creepy, Gus doesn't seem like he's going to hurt Flora, but she's so afraid of him that she ends up killing herself—something that gets blamed on him.
In this way, Flora's racist ideology, as handed down to her by her family, ends up hurting both her and Gus.
Putting that aside, however, Griffith wants this moment to be symbolic of the South's sullied innocence. Flora has been depicted as a total sweetheart throughout the entire film, and her death is meant to show that the "new" South is actively detrimental to the region's former way-of-life. Of course, we disagree with this assessment of the historical situation, but it's clearly what Griffith intended with Flora's character.