Examples Of Coming Of Age In A Painted House

The Winds of Change: A Coming of Age Story
Coming of age can be described as a difficult and tedious process. It can happen at any age and it can even come without warning or expectation. Many individuals may welcome it while others have no desire to go through with it at all. There are even moments when change is forced on the individual and they are given an opportunity to embrace it and grow. John Grisham was able to illustrate such a process in the life of a young boy in the novel, A Painted House. In this novel, a seven year old boy named Luke goes through one of the most depressing and distressing years of his life. This story is told from Luke’s point of view and it describes the process that his family had to go through in order to

improve their lives. This is a great representation of the time period because it shows how one family overcame the challenges in their environment and moved to a different part of the country in order to improve their lives. This novel is a representation of the historical period because it showed what individuals had to do during those times in order to survive. Therefore, A Painted House is a coming of age story that represents historical conflict with changes in the south, how families must deal with those conflicts and how many eventually removed themselves from that environment by moving to the north.

This novel takes place in 1952 and is based on John Grisham’s childhood in Arkansas (Delaney). This was a critical time period for the south and there were numerous conflicts regarding individual rights, immigration and an ever changing cotton industry. In the novel a group of hillbillies known as the Sisco family often try to dominate the other families in the town by starting huge fist fights on Saturdays. “With the county full of hill people picking cotton, it was only logical that the Siscos would start a fight with someone who didn't know them. The locals knew better” (Grisham 86-87). They had the entire town living in fear and this family could use their brutal influence to get families or individuals that they do not like out of town. This was a great way for them to get rid of and eliminate their competition. Luke witnesses his first murder when Hank Spurill gets in a fight with three of the Sisco brothers and kills Jerry Sisco. This represents the society at the time because the economy was changing and becoming a commercial venture that did not require as many workers (Hurt). Many families were poor and migrant workers that had to compete with one another and with immigrants coming from Mexico (Fernandez).

Throughout the novel there is also conflict between a family of hillbillies known as the Spurills and a group of Mexican migrant workers. It illustrated how this added another aspect to the competitive job market in this environment. There are also cultural aspects that would prevent these workers from having deeper relationships. There is constant conflict between Hank Spruill and Cowboy that results in Cowboy getting a broken rib when Hank purposely throws a baseball at him. Another murder is even witnessed by the main character, Luke, after Hank wins a wrestling match, receives $250 and decides to leave. Cowboy kills Hank Spruill with his pocket knife because of this. Cowboy even threatens Luke about what will happen if he says anything about what he witnessed. “[…] he took the tip of the blade and tapped my forehead. ‘You speak one word about tonight,’ he said slowly, his eyes doing more talking than his mouth, ‘and I will kill your mother.’ (Grisham 333)” This has a profound effect on Luke because he had witnessed his second murder and he realized that the world could be a dangerous place. The fact that Cowboy and Hanks sister, Tally, run off together shows that the culture during this time period would not accept an interracial couple.

The Chandlers represent the basic working family in the south during the 1950s. Daily struggles were a given and they were in a state of constant work in order to maintain their debts and a sense of living. They were the business owner struggling to survive and they had to deal with the changing socioeconomic environment of the south at the time. This is portrayed in the book using the conflicts between the different working families and the migrant workers. There is also the hint of owing debt and struggling to survive because without hiring extra help the family was doomed to lose the cotton and they would still be unable to pay their bills.

The Chandler family also had issues with harvesting their cotton and were stuck between being in debt to their land lords and trying to make enough money. This was happening across the state because families had to compete with the growing industry when machinery was being used by commercial ventures to produce cheaper goods more quickly (Silva). It was disheartening for the family and they had to battle all of this turmoil in the midst of a great year for their harvest. This is a great reflection on how the economy was changing during the post-World War Two period and how the country was beginning to modernize into a service industry instead of a production economy. The state of perpetual conflict prevalent in society today was also explored with the Korean War happening during the events of this novel. Small farm families could no longer keep up with their debts and were forced to move into other areas of the country for work in order to earn better wages and have better living conditions. In the end, millions of families migrated to the north to find factory work (Alexander).

The family gets a brief quiet period when Hank and Cowboy are finally gone.

They end up losing two of the strongest workers that they have. This does not matter in the end because they lose all of their crops and even have some damage done to the family home due to floods from a series of rain storms. The storms destroy their livelihood, however, they also wash away all of their problems in order to help the family move forward. Families during this time period were dependent on weather that they could often be ruined by a sudden mishap or by Mother Nature itself. This would place more of a debt burden on them and they would be forced to work another year even further behind then the preceding one. Many families became trapped by this and it could be described as being reminiscent of the Great Depression. The only option for these families was to move north or to the cities and embrace the industrialization of the country. They ultimately decide that they would move north in order to have a better life and save up

money.

Luke is able to see all of this conflict and it gives him a sense of maturity as the story moves forward. The reader is able to see this sense of maturity when Luke finishes painting the family house that one of the crippled Spruill children had started. This shows that even as a child Luke was able to understand and comprehend his situation. Many individuals do not receive this gift of maturity until they are far older such as a teenager or adult. The experiences that this young boy had went through in that single year must have been very difficult and they had a profound effect on him. The story seems to be told as a flashback from an older individual and this is reflected in the way Luke narrates the novel. The psychological changes that Luke had gone through had taken his childhood from him and he was no longer innocent to how the world operated. John Grisham even said that the novel was based on his life as a child and on a collection of old family stories (Kinsella).

The timing of Luke finishing the new paint job on the house coincided with the Chandler family deciding that they wanted to leave the south and move north to work in the factories.

The floods had washed away their old lives and the painting of their home represented them creating a new life that they would begin in the north. Luke’s mother was even pregnant and that symbolized a new life being brought into the world. This could have even been a reflection of their new lives that would begin in the north. The grandparents were both happy and sad to see their family leaving them. They knew that they would have better lives up north and be able to be more successful and comfortable in the future. This shows how the country and its citizens were changing during this time period and the cities were in a period of growth while the countryside was going through a waning period. The country had been thrown into a period of modernization after decades of social turmoil, warfare and economic depression. This was the beginning of a great change in the country at this time and a marked change into one of the most powerful industrial and service industries on the

planet.

A Painted House by John Grisham was a great coming of age story that represented changes in the country through the adventures of a seven year old child. Social, economic and psychological conflict were represented in various ways as Luke went through his life. Eventually he and his family were forced to move and start lives anew in the north where life was much more prosperous and less affected by the changes coming to the country. Various aspects of his journey represented these changes and they illustrated a fact of life that most individuals do not have to experience. From a historical standpoint, this novel is a great representation of the end of the agrarian and isolationist society that had triumphed in America in its early years and the beginning of an expansive, diverse, industrial and service society that is present in the world of today. The novel was able to show how America, like Luke, had entered a state of adulthood even though they were both still young in the eyes of the world.