The Wild Plums
The Wild Plums
The wild plum is a story that describes the barrier of social equality. It also depicts a young girl who is longing for a forbidden fruit that her father and mother have warned her against completely. The parents of the girl brainwash her to thinking that the plums are inferior and small, and they should never be eaten. The neighbors of these parents are slumps, and they enjoy picking and eating the plums where they do not think of it as being a sin, but a fun family activity.
Symbols are usually all around us in everyday life. Therefore, the stories that people read and tell usually express essential beliefs and ideas through objects which hold symbolic meaning. The wild plums is a story that revolves around an essential central symbol. The symbol that is being depicted in the story is the wild plum. This is the fruit that the narrator is not being allowed to eat. The plums in the story represent the way of life of the slumps and the separation between the social statuses of each of the families. This is a story that has used a lot of symbols in portraying the story. The symbols that have been used tend to be depicted all throughout in the story. This makes the reader feel like they are experiencing the moment.
In the start of the story, the narrator who is a young girl growing up in the farm of their family says that she knew it was not good going pluming, but did not know why. The father to the narrator is against her joining the slumps and he refers to the fruit as being inferior and unfit for consumption by a human being (Kenison, K & Updike J 2002). This is a symbol that the slumps are poor as compared to other people in the community. According to the narrators, the slumps used to sit on boxes instead of chairs. From the way of speaking and dressing by the slumps, it is a symbol that they are less educated and people of lower class. The author of the story has used symbolism through the use of the wild plums. The author has used wild plums to indicate the class that the people who are eating them belong. It is a symbol of poverty as the people who are eating the fruit are from a lower class. This is the reason as to why the narrator of the story does not want her child to eat the fruit.
The last paragraph in the story, the narrator admits that she tasted the plum that she collected on the road and said that it had the favor of “wild honey” (Kenison, K & Updike J 2002). This is an obvious indication that there was nothing inferior with the fruit. According to the narrator, the problem was not that the fruit was not good for human consumption, but the people who were picking the fruit.
The way in which the symbol is introduced is at the story. The meaning of then symbol continues to develop as then story continues when the reader learns more about the slumps and pluming. The author has decided to represent the meaning of the narrative to the reader through the use of symbols. This makes the story to be more understandable and even more interesting.
Reference
Kenison, K & Updike J (2002). The best America short stories of the century Houghton Mifflin Company
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