A Naive Revelation

As a kid we are all taught to trust and obey what our parents say because it is supposed to benefit us, but when your parents are addicted to drugs it can be hard to trust them. In Ron Rash’s story “The Ascent” Jared learns a great deal about himself and his family. When Jared comes to the realization that his parents may never make bad situations okay, he decides to take matters into his own hands even if it means taking his own life. Unlikely revelations occur in “The Ascent” due to the author’s use of a naïve narrator, foreshadowing, and setting through imagery.

The audience can tell that Jared is naïve because he is simply a kid who does not understand all that the world throws at him. When Jared imagines Lyndee Starnes, a girl from his class, walking throughout the woods with him he finds a ring and plans to take it to her. The author states, “Once he gave it to her, Lyndee would finally like him, and it would be for real” (282). Jared’s imagination and his subsequent actions show that he is naïve because Lyndee already told him he smelled just days before he finds the ring, but he still plans on Lyndee loving him once he gives the ring to her. The author declares in the story, “There was a seat in the back, empty. Jared placed his knife in his pocket and climbed into the back seat and closed the passenger door. Because it’s so cold, that’s why they don’t smell much, he thought… He’d been sitting in the back seat for two hours, though it seemed only a few minutes” [280-81]. If he understood the idea of death he would not have been curious enough to get into the plane with the dead bodies in the first place which makes him a naïve little boy.

When Jared realizes his parents are addicted to drugs and are not going to change ...

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...hild. Rash declares, “The glass pipe lay on the coffee table, beside four baggies, two with powder still in them. There’d never been more than one before” (283). Jared finally realizes that his parents will always find money for drugs and that because of their addiction they can never love him the way he wants to be loved.

A naïve narrator, foreshadowing, and the setting all conclude to the revelation Jared has as a kid. Being young there is a lot that is a mystery, but for Jared to be so young and understand that some things will never change is an amazing revelation. Rash’s story teaches us a lesson on how being loved matters at any age and that being addicted to drugs is not the best condition to raise a child.

Works Cited

Rash, Ron. “The Ascent.” The Best American Short Stories. 2010. Eds. Richard Russo and Heidi Pitlor. Boston: Mariner, 2010. 280-87. Print.