Khawaja 1

Adeel Khawaja

Ms. Wing

Pre AP English 10 H

4 October 2017

The Plum Plum Pickers Essay

Raymond Barrio’s excerpt from The Plum Plum Pickers depicts the life of a migrant

worker struggling to maintain his humanity. Barrio’s use of brusque diction and imagery, simple

and compound sentence syntax, and despairing tone create a moment of epiphany in one man’s

life.

The diction and imagery helps describe the feel and look of the scenes in The Plum Plum

Pickers. Barrio is describing the main character and the surroundings when he says,” Brute. He

felt alone. Though surrounded by other pickers. Beast.” Here Barrio uses words like “brute” and

“beast” to create brusque diction. Also the imagery used here paints a picture of the other pickers

around the main character helping to establish the scene. Another example shows the state of the

main character after a great deal of work:” Almost too exhausted to eat, he munched his cheese

with tortillas, smoked on ashes, then lay back on the cool ground for half an hour.”( para.2).

Barrio uses diction that shows how tired and exhausted he is after doing his work, while the

imagery describes what the character is doing. Both the diction and imagery serve an important

role in telling the story.

The syntax used by Barrio is very interesting with a mix of simple, compound, and

complex sentences.There is a scene that describes the effects of the labor intensive work:” Beast.

Though he was perspiring heavily his shirt was powder dry. Savage.”(para.1) Barrio uses one

word sentences to emphasize on the hard work the pickers are doing, the conditions they are
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working in, and the main character as well. Also a complex sentence is used to describe the state

of the main characters shirt. In another scene Barrio describes the hard work the workers are

doing:” The endless unending piling up of bucket upon bin upon crate upon stack upon rack

upon mountain.”(para.2). Here Barrio doesn’t use any commas to list the tasks. It also repeats the

word “upon” to emphasize on the amount of work they are doing. These forms of syntax help

emphasize certain aspects to achieve Barrio’s purpose of showing the hard life of these pickers.

The tone used is mostly despairing, but in the end of the passage it becomes impassioned.

When Barrio is describing what the main character is doing he says,” almost too exhausted to

eat, he munched his cheese with tortillas.” Here the character is very sad and exhausted which

creates a despairing tone. Also, after he takes his break, he has to work even more which adds to

the hopelessness. In the last paragraph, it talks about the main characters victory:” He had

salvaged his money savagely and he had earned respect from his fellow slaves.” Barrio uses an

impassioned tone to show how strong the main character feels about keeping his money and let

his fellow pickers keep theirs. Another reason why it has an impassioned tone is because it

makes them feel like they are not just slaves and that they mean something. Despairing and

impassioned tone helped to depict the feelings of the pickers and the environment.

The passage from The Plum Plum Pickers uses many different kinds of diction, imagery,

syntax, and tone. All of these different aspects helped depict the world of the pickers and to show

a monumental moment in one man’s life.