John Grishams A Painted House Essay -- Essays Papers

John Grisham's A Painted House John Grisham’s book, ‘A Painted House’ places the reader within the walls of a simple home on the cotton fields of rural Arkansas. Within the first few pages, the author’s description of the setting quickly paints a picture of a hard working family and creates a shared concern with the reader about the family’s struggle to meet the basic needs of life. The description of the dusty roads, the unpainted board-sided house, the daily chore requirements and their lack of excess cause the reader a reaction of empathy for the family. Although the story takes place in a dusty setting very unfamiliar to most readers, the storyline is timeless and universal. Most everyone has a desire to meet the basic needs of life, embrace their family ties, and make others and ourselves proud. The crux of this book is that it does an excellent job in showing the reader through other’s examples and hardships to persevere and never give up. The title of the book, ‘A Painted House’ is based on the actual farmhouse in which the Chandler family resides. It was an old house. It was a fine house that had never been painted. For this particular family, paint - like eating meat with every meal - was a luxury. It was not a requirement to have a painted house. It was not a sign of laziness as the reader might initially expect. It was a sign of being frugal with money. In this bold example of persevering and never giving up, Mr. Grisham demonstrates to the reader that ’one can’t have everything’. The story is told through the eyes of seven year old Luke Chandler. Luke lives with his parents and grandparents on their rented farmland in the lowlands of Arkansas. It takes place during the harvest season for cotton in 1952. Like other cotton growers, these were hard times for the Chandlers. Their simple lives reached their zenith each year with the task of picking cotton. It’s more than any family can complete by themselves. In order to harvest the crops and get paid, the Chandlers must find cotton pickers to help get the crops to the cotton gin. In order to persevere, they must depend on others. They find two sets of migrant farm workers to assist them with their efforts: the Mexicans, and the Spruills - a family from the Arkansas hills that pick cotton for others each year. In reading the book, the reader learns quickly that l... ...ily is residing in the Chandler barn where the Mexicans first stayed. Luke and his parents are traveling to Michigan in order for Luke’s father can find a job in a automotive assembly plant, and Luke’s grandparents are staying at the old farmhouse with the hopes that the whole family will be back together soon. The hope from the reader is that all of the book’s characters will someday find true happiness. These folks work hard and our characters seem to deserve more than they currently have. Most readers can appreciate this feeling because it’s a feeling shared by everyone. In regards to the unpainted house: At the end of the book, only a corner of the house needs painting to be complete. It would have been very easy for our author to have completely finished in painting the house. However, that’s not what the premise nor the promise of the book contains. There is a big difference in completing a challenge, and being successful. Although life’s problems and challenges are never ending, the success in dealing with a challenge has more to do with the way it is done than in its completion. ‘The joy is certainly in the journey’ when reading the novel, ‘A Painted House’.