Blackberries In June Ron Rash Summary

571 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Introduction of freedom writers

Blackberries in June is a short story, written by Ron Rash, that highlights the harsh economic standings of families in the Appalachian region on the United States. The main characters are a young newly married couple, Jamie and Matt, who have been blessed with a lake house in the mountains. The young couple are optimistic about having their whole lives in front of them but elders in the story elude to a more somber reality. In the short story, Blackberries in June, the author uses the presence, or lack thereof, of water as a symbol to represent the character's state of freedom. In the beginning of the story the presence of water symbolizes the physical and mental freedom the young couple share. The story begins with Jamie driving on the way home, to the lake house, after a long day of work. In the car Jamie yearns “ to be unchained in the weightlessness of the water” (203). The physical act of being weightless symbolizes her mental weightlessness or freedom. Jamie and Matt make love in water which enforces the connection they have with themselves and the mental and physical freedom they feel. …show more content…

Her father crippled from work, can no longer provide for the family causing him to push his, and his wives, dreams to the side. The author describes the landscape of the parents house: “ In a white oak out by the boarded-up well, a cicada called for rain.” The author uses the imagery of a boarded-up well to represent the absence of water, which symbolizes freedom, in Jamie’s parents life. The water is gone and dried up just like the dreams that her parents use to have when they were young. The mention of rain eludes to Jamie and Matt’s freedom which hangs in the balance like gray clouds in the sky. While at their parents house, while it is not stated directly, her mother’s attitude is apprehensive of what the future might hold for Jamie and

Show More
Related

  • Setting in Greasy Lake by T. Coraghessan Boyle

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    The lake itself plays a major role throughout the story, as it mirrors the characters almost exactly. For example, the lake is described as being “fetid and murky, the mud banks glittering with broken glass and strewn with beer cans” (125). The characters are also described as being “greasy” or “dangerous” several times, which ties the lake and the characters together through their similarities. The narrator explains, “We were bad. At night we went up to Greasy Lake” (124). This demonstrates the importance that the surroundings in which the main characters’ choose to be in is extremely important to the image that they reflect. At the beginning of the story, these characters’ images and specifically being “bad” is essentially all that mattered to them. “We wore torn up leather jackets…drank gin and grape juice…sniffed glue and ether and what somebody claimed was cocaine” (124). They went out of their ...

    Read More

  • Daystar Rita Dove Summary

    1086 Words  | 3 Pages

    Which only adds an extra weight to the struggles she’s having being a wife and mother. The fact that she has to wash her daughter’s diapers, she was in the back yard with the field mice, indicates that they don’t have much money. “But she saw diapers steaming on the line” (2-3). This line suggests, not only did they not have a washer and dryer but they still had to use clothes lines. There are not too many families that still use clothes lines or don’t have washer and dryers. Having to hand wash everything is a job by alone. “And just what was mother doing out back with the field mice” (15-17)? The woman being outside with the field mice makes me think maybe they didn’t live close to the city. Auditory imagery is expressed in these lines. “Sometimes there were things to watch the pinched armor of a vanished cricket, a floating leaf” (8-10). It’s easy to feel the feelings the woman is feeling during this

    Read More

  • Symbolism Of Water In The Awakening

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some of the most popular uses of water in literature include representing themes such as life, death, the soul, a cleansing, as well as creation and destruction. The sea in particular has often been cast in the past as its own ominous presence. A being of uncertainty and infinite depths, the sea is often a mysterious force in literature with many different meanings. The sea can be seen as the start of new beginnings and adventures as well as a dark end all. Throughout The Awakening, water is used to symbolize fear, frustration, rebirth, and liberation.

    Read More

  • Motif Of Water In Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend '

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    The motif of water first plays out in the childhood section of the novel. Elena and Lila skip school for one day to go to the ocean. The first time Elena escapes the enclosed neighborhood for a little bit, she feels “the pleasure of being free” (75). The sea that they were trying to escape to makes Elena feel her first encounter with freedom. Continuing, the motif of water changes in size depending on how free each character it’s associated is. For example, Nino Sarratore has a chance to escape the neighborhood with his family and go to high school, building a better future for himself. Nino is associated with the vast sea surrounding the island of Ischia, where he is able to move freely and to his own pleasure. Contrasting Nino is Antonio Cappuccio’s situation. Antonio is an auto mechanic who makes little money and lacks a proper education. When Elena is messing around with Antonio, they always met by “ponds by the back streets” (280). The pond symbolizes how Antonio is stuck in this small area that is the neighborhood for the rest of his life because he lacks the education needed to leave. Finally, Lila is the one that is closed in the most. Following, when Elena washes Lila in the “copper tub full of boiling water”, Elena and Lila converse about Lila’s future as a married woman to Stefano (312). Lila is making a mistake because her marriage will cause her to forever trap her in the neighborhood and in the copper tub instead of swimming amidst the broad ocean like Elena. If Lila had a proper education like Elena, then she would not have to have confined herself into the copper tub. The motif of water shows up throughout the entire novel and is always associated with freedom. This freedom was granted to those with the proper education, while those not able to go to school were forced to live out their lives strapped in such a

    Read More

  • How Does Montag Change In Fahrenheit 451

    437 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the view of Thomas Foster in the chapter, “If She Comes Up, It's Baptism” water for the most part symbolize something outside of the context given in the novel. In other words he says that if a character is written to almost drown and don’t the author may have been using this as an excuse to make the character reborn. “So maybe on some level tossing the characters into the river is (a) wish fulfillment, (b) exorcism of primal fear, (c) exploration of the possible, and not just (d) a handy solution to messy plot difficulties” (Foster 153). Furthermore the author can craft their narration, however they see fit, similarly with any other literary technique. After some thought, seeing the correlation between this and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 came to mind.

    Read More

  • Psychoanatic Criticism In Shakespeare's The Tempest

    757 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the symbols often shown or spoken throughout the play is water. The image of water is shown to be deadly. This is shown by Ferdinand losing his father at sea and he deems to think that his father drowned as they were involved in a shipwreck. Water is a huge symbol and image in the play, as the setting takes place on an Island near the Bermuda Triangle and portrays the image if anything is lost in the water, it is lost or gone forever. The song by Ariel, leads Ferdinand to think that his father drowned at sea and is gone forever. Ariel’s song puts in our minds that his body will not be found as a body, but as something else. The symbol of water gives us the impression that once something is lost at sea, it’s never coming back. This is shown in the movie Titanic when Rose drops the heart of the sea necklace into the ocean, never to be seen

    Read More

  • Metaphor and Imagery in Galway Kinnell's Poem, Blackberry Eating

    998 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the fourteen lines of the poem, the imagery of the blackberries, as well as the speaker's ardor for them is explored. In the final lines of the poem, the speaker reveals the connection between the imagery of the blackberries and the imagery that is created by words. The blackberries become the existing tangible reality of the way the speaker views words. The author savors the taste of the blackberries in his mouth in much the same way as he savors the sound of certain words on his tongue.

    Read More

  • Cannery Row

    844 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...in The Bean Trees, Taylor’s motherly love, Lou Ann’s sympathy, and Mattie’s generosity, all develop a community, a family, and a nostalgia of support. Mack and the boy’s innovative lives, similar to the women in The Bean Trees, both survive with the help of another. Dora’s and Taylor’s everlasting benevolence towards needy families, drives the community to prosperity. Furthermore, Cannery Row and the tide pool’s s reliance on each other, as well as the rhizobia are relevant, for the two depend on support, to survive. In conclusion, Cannery Row and The Bean Trees are sources of inspiration, Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, carries a lot of Cannery Row’s meaningful messages of the world. Simple fellowship from one person, in reality changes a community to be not just a location on a map, but a bond of unitedly support.

    Read More

  • Yf Komunyakaa Blackberries

    730 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the poem “Blackberries” by Ysef Komunyakaa, the author depicts a young boy picking blackberries in the woods. Throughout the poem the author causes the reader to believe the young boy is guilty, yet the reader is not completely sure why there is an intense feeling of guilt. After having knowledge of the authors race, the feeling of guilt makes complete sense. The author is a black man who grew up in rural Louisiana, having that knowledge the tone of the story is even more logical. Since the author is a African American male who grew up in rural Louisiana, it would only make sense he was writing about his own childhood experiences, or feelings he once felt impacted his life. In the poem “Blackberries” the author causes the audience to feel

    Read More

  • Holes Symbolism

    244 Words  | 1 Pages

    Weather is like an author in itself, telling a story. In the book Holes. There was a vast, vibrant lake that made the town living by it survive. The lake produced every kind of nourishment for the town. It was the center of life. When Sam, the simple black man making a living from the lake crops, is murdered, the town suddenly stops getting rain. The lake ends up drying up and the town lays to waste. The lack of rain symbolizes the harsh payback the murderers had coming. It was a punishment to the town. Also Sam's girlfriend Kate is telling the story at that point, so the dried up lake means a sense of hopelessness for her. She wants to dry up and die just as the lake that Sam had lived on had done. Hopefully everyone knows the story of Stanley

    Read More

  • The Water Motif in Beloved by Toni Morrison

    1442 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Beloved, one of the things that water represents is birth. When Sethe was running away form Sweet Home, she was pregnant. In order to get to freedom, she had to cross the Ohio River. On the way to the river, Sethe met a young white girl named Amy Denver. Amy helped Sethe to keep going because her feet were swollen up. When Sethe and Amy got to the river, Sethe thought the baby had died during the previous night. However, she soon felt the signs of labor. “It looked like home to her, and the baby (not dead in the least) must have thought so too. As soon as Sethe got close to the river her own water broke loose to join it. The break, followed by the redundant announcement of labor, arched her back'; (p. 83). Sethe crawled into a boat that soon began to fill with water. It was in this boat that Sethe gave birth to Denver. “When a foot rose f...

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Lady With The Pet Dog And Yellow Woman

    1287 Words  | 3 Pages

    The plot that develops from the setting is that when the narrator and the man are next to the river, it could be perceived as calming since that is how she felt

    Read More

  • Symbol and Symbolism of Water in Toni Morrison's Beloved

    861 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sethe left Sweet Home pregnant with Denver, "and ran off with no one's help" (p.224). She ran scared and fearful of the trackers following her trail.  Sethe met Amy Denver, a white woman, on her way to Ohio.  Amy helped Sethe find the Ohio River.  The river was "one mile of dark water.[and] it looked like home to her and the baby"(p.83).  When Amy left, Sethe traveled downstream and met Stamp Paid.  He helped her and Denver cross the river to freedom.&nbs away the memories of Sweet Home and began her life with Denver at 124.   Water represents the transition of Sethe's slave life to her life of freedom.  Again, water has cleansed the soul of the sin of slavery. The river is now a barrier.  It separates Sethe's life of slavery, to her new life of freedom. Water introduces the end of Sethe's life without Beloved and the transformation of Beloved from a spirit to a physical being.  Beloved emerged from the river fully clothed and nineteen years old. Beloved's emergence from the river symbolizes her new life in the world.  She was no longer trapped in 124; she was human once again.  Beloved had "new skin, lineless and smooth, including the knuckles of her hands" (p.50).  She was new and unused.

    Read More

  • Symbolism in The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson

    1535 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the main symbols of the story is the setting. It takes place in a normal small town on a nice summer day. "The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blooming profusely and the grass was richly green." (Jackson 347).This tricks the reader into a disturbingly unaware state,

    Read More

  • Jose Neil C. Garcia's The Conversion

    651 Words  | 2 Pages

    At the beginning of the poem, the narrator talked about how his cousins did not get washed as well as their laundry and dishes just to save the water for him. His father and his uncles were furiously looking for him inside the house. When his father saw him inside the cabinet of his late mother, he got dragged by the hair. In the metal drum in their bathroom, where the water was waiting for him, his family drowned him while asking whether he is a boy or a girl. Obviously, they want him to confirm that he is a boy

    Read More

More about Blackberries In June Ron Rash Summary

Open Document