45 pages • 1 hour read
John GrishamA Painted House
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 8-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
Sunday, the Chandlers head to church where they learn that Jerry Sisco died. The preacher, Brother Akers, delivers a sermon about the sinfulness of murder. The Chandlers return home after the service and see the Spruills bathing in the river; Luke realizes that Hank probably doesn’t yet know that he’s a murderer.
Chapter 9 Summary
Later in the day, Stick Powers arrives to question the Spruills. Leon Spruill initially denies that any of them were involved in a fight, but Hank clarifies that he “stopped a fight” (95). Leon tells Pappy that if Hank is made to leave the property, all the Spruills will leave. Pappy, fearing the loss of half his workforce, gets Hank to divulge that in the fight he was up against three Siscos; he points out to Stick that no jury will convict a man who faced three opponents in a fight. Stick asks Hank if any witnesses can confirm this, and Hank says that Luke can. Luke, torn between telling the truth and endangering his family’s livelihood, lies to Stick and says that it was not only three against one but that the Siscos were the ones with the two-by-four. Stick says he’ll keep investigating.
Chapter 10 Summary
After Stick’s departure, the Chandlers gather food from the garden to bring to the Latchers, a family of poor sharecroppers who live down the road. There’s a rumor that Libby, one of the Latcher children, has become pregnant out of wedlock; Luke’s mother is determined to find out if the rumor is true. The Latchers accept the food, but Libby is nowhere to be seen. Afterward, Luke’s father asks him why he didn’t say anything about having seen the fight. Luke apologizes but lies to his father, telling him that everything happened too quickly for him to have seen who picked up the two-by-four first.
Chapter 11 Summary
At the end of the next week, Pappy announces that they won’t be going into town after what happened last week. Luke is upset that he won’t get his weekly reprieve from the farm, but his irritation dissipates when Miguel asks him if he wants to play baseball. While Pappy is in town buying supplies, Luke’s father sets up a baseball game—the Mexican workers against the Arkansan locals. When the Arkansans quickly learn that Cowboy is a brilliant pitcher, Hank is upset. When it’s his turn to pitch, he plays unfairly against Cowboy and eventually throws a fastball that hits Cowboy in the body hard enough to break his rib. Cowboy goads Hank into a fight and pulls a switchblade. Luke’s father and Miguel diffuse the fight before anyone gets more seriously hurt.
Chapter 12 Summary
Later that day, Tally asks Luke if there’s a body of water where she can bathe. Luke directs her to Siler’s Creek, and Tally asks him to come with her to keep a lookout. Luke obliges, and Tally tells him not to look as she disrobes. Luke does secretly watch Tally as she bathes, and, when she dries off and puts her clothes back on, she asks him if he did. Luke tells the truth. To his surprise, Tally tells him that it’s “only natural” for him to want to see her naked and that he’s welcome to watch again the next time she bathes.
Chapter 13 Summary
At church on Sunday, Brother Akers’s discussion of the war in Korea dampens the Chandlers’ spirits. When they return home, Miguel asks for Gran’s help in tending to Cowboy, who was badly injured by Hank. Gran tries to help him with a tincture that he rejects; Pappy and Luke’s father say that if he were bleeding internally, he would have already died. Luke talks to Cowboy afterward, and Cowboy confides in him that he’s killed many men before with his switchblade.
Chapter 14 Summary
Later in the week, when the cotton is ready to be taken the gin, Pappy and Luke head into town. While Pappy takes their harvest to the men who run the gin, Luke talks to an older boy named Jackie Moon about Hank and the Siscos. Jackie also saw the fight, and the two agree that they wish they never had.
The next day, the Chandlers receive a letter from Ricky, who tells them that the war effort is going well and that he hopes to return home soon. This news excites everyone in the house. Luke begins to write his uncle a letter in which he describes everything that has happened recently in Black Oak.
Chapters 8-14 Analysis
Though the plot of A Painted House is largely driven by the tensions that unfold after Jerry Sisco’s murder, Grisham also takes many opportunities to relate small anecdotes from Luke’s life that have little to do with the plot of the murder. Chapter 10 offers an especially evocative example when, after visiting the Latchers for the first time, Luke then goes to the river to fish. This narrative segment is dedicated to establishing “the dangers of the river” that make Luke wary of the water (103), and to underscoring how difficult it is for Luke to find spaces on the farm where he can be truly alone; the water is one of the only such spaces available to him. Though this segment breaks the narrative momentum of the unraveling of Jerry Sisco’s murder, it allows Grisham to foreshadow the dangers the river will impose on the farm later in the novel. When the river floods and the crops are destroyed, this turn isn’t entirely surprising because Grisham has already alluded to the threat of the water. In addition to this foreshadowing, this segment also helps characterize the process of Luke’s development. In the middle of this river section, Grisham nests yet another anecdote—a cautionary tale Luke has been told about an entire family that was killed by the river. This tale shows his community’s oral tradition of transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next. It also shows how children in Black Oak are raised on stories of brutal violence at home in addition to in the media they consume. Finally, the fact that this story is told as a cautionary tale—with the implication that this fate might befall Luke if he doesn’t listen to his parents—underscores the guilt-focused, punishment-driven method by which Luke’s parents control his behavior.
Despite the frequent breaks from the primary plot to relay anecdotes such as these, the pacing of A Painted House remains brisk, largely through the way in which Grisham ends sections. Regardless of whether the content of a section relates to the central plot, Grisham rarely ends a section in a place where the characters feel satisfied or where their work is completed. A prime example of this technique comes early in Chapter 8, in a section that only describes the Chandlers waking up and watching a rainstorm. This section ends with Jesse Chandler looking into the distance, “no doubt beginning to worry that floodwaters were coming” (82). Though this section is light on character action, Grisham creates narrative momentum by ending the section with a moment of anticipation. This ending also raises the prospect of floodwaters, prefiguring the primary tension that will drive the narrative after the Sisco murder has been resolved.
Grisham continues to build on the juxtaposition technique he employed in the previous section. Chapter 13 is marked by a stark juxtaposition of global violence and violence on the farm. The chapter begins with an anecdote about Mrs. Dockery, who claims to have a cousin who was recently killed in Korea; war then becomes the topic of that Sunday’s sermon. This anecdote is juxtaposed with the section that ends this chapter, in which Cowboy, recovering from internal injuries sustained from playing baseball with Hank, shows Luke the switchblade he drew on Hank at the end of the game. Placing these plot points in the same chapter asks the reader to draw parallels between the government-sanctioned violence on a global scale that is wounding communities such as Black Oak, and the local, interpersonal violence that threatens to upend life on the Chandlers’ farm. Luke’s horrified reaction to learning that Cowboy has killed with his switchblade (“I’d seen enough. I backed away […]” [140]) indicates that he is considering whether Cowboy’s desire to kill is an effective response to Hank’s aggression. The potential for escalation frightens Luke. Dealing with his community’s penchant for violence is another of Luke’s Emotional Burdens of Coming of Age. This question of whether violence is a worthwhile response to violence haunts every mention of the Korean War and raises questions about the efficacy of Ricky’s struggle.
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