A painted House by John Grisham essays

A painted House by John Grisham essays In his novel A Painted House, John Grisham tells the story of the events of one summer as viewed and interpreted by a young boy, Luke Chandler. The book presents a view of how a group of people interact together: a cotton-growing share-cropping family, the transient workers they hire to help them pick the cotton, and their neighbors. The story delineates the social status and interactions between the various groups: share croppers, "mountain folk" who come down to help with the picking, and itinerant migrant workers from Mexico. In the process, Luke learns to look past surface assumptions about people. This is reflected by the emphasis on the surface appearance of his family's house whether it is painted r In the view of the people who inhabit Grisham's story, a painted house is superior to an unpainted one, and reflects increased status, because a painted house can only be afforded by those who could spend extra money on paint instead of necessities. Luke's grandfather believes that painting one's house is a sign of vanity and a waste of good money, while John's mother has always dreamed of living in a painted house again some day. The reality is somewhere in between: with or without paint, the house is humble, but no one talks about paint's protective factor and that a house whose surface was protected by a good paint job would last longer than one that was not painted, or only painted to improve surface appearance. Luke Chandler has a passion for baseball, and dreams one day of playing professional baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals, but all baseball is followed closely. In one scene, Luke watches a game between two church congregations, the Methodists and his own Baptist church. In this scene he reflects the types of judgments regarding other people that those around him make: the Methodists should lose not base on their ball-playing ability but because of o...