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    Analysis of Berry

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    ronny ron
    The document provides an analysis of the short story "Berry" by Langston Hughes. It summarizes the plot, in which the main character Millberry Jones is reluctantly hired by Mrs. Osborn at a children's home due to his race. He is overworked and underpaid. An accident occurs where a child falls from his wheelchair, and Berry is immediately fired without pay. The document also outlines the main characters and explores themes of racism and oppression in the story.

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    Analysis of Berry

    Uploaded by

    ronny ron
    676 views3 pages
    The document provides an analysis of the short story "Berry" by Langston Hughes. It summarizes the plot, in which the main character Millberry Jones is reluctantly hired by Mrs. Osborn at a children's home due to his race. He is overworked and underpaid. An accident occurs where a child falls from his wheelchair, and Berry is immediately fired without pay. The document also outlines the main characters and explores themes of racism and oppression in the story.

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    The document provides an analysis of the short story "Berry" by Langston Hughes. It summarizes the plot, in which the main character Millberry Jones is reluctantly hired by Mrs. Osborn at a children's home due to his race. He is overworked and underpaid. An accident occurs where a child falls from his wheelchair, and Berry is immediately fired without pay. The document also outlines the main characters and explores themes of racism and oppression in the story.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    676 views3 pages

    Analysis of Berry

    Uploaded by

    ronny ron
    The document provides an analysis of the short story "Berry" by Langston Hughes. It summarizes the plot, in which the main character Millberry Jones is reluctantly hired by Mrs. Osborn at a children's home due to his race. He is overworked and underpaid. An accident occurs where a child falls from his wheelchair, and Berry is immediately fired without pay. The document also outlines the main characters and explores themes of racism and oppression in the story.

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    Analysis of Berry by Langston

    Hughes
    Summary
    Berry is about a young black man called Millberry Jones who is employed
    at Dr. Renfield’s Home for Crippled Children. He was reluctantly
    employed by Mrs. Osborn, the housekeeper, because the Scandinavian
    kitchen boy had left without notice, leaving her no choice in hiring Berry.
    Her reluctance to hire Berry stemmed from his race, which initiated
    questions such as where he would sleep, as well as how the other
    employees would react to the presence of a Negro. She had a meeting with
    Dr. Renfield and they decided to hire Millberry on a reduced salary. He
    was overworked and underpaid, but took solace in the children whom he
    loved.
    An unfortunate incident occurred, however, where a child fell from his
    wheelchair while in the care of Berry. The result was that Berry was fired
    and given no salary for the week that he had worked.

    CHARACTERS

    Millbury Jones (Berry)

    A Black male, approximately 20 years old.


    Described as good natured and strong.
    Poor and uneducated.
    Very observant and intuitive about people and places.
    Very good with children due to his gentleness.

    Mrs. Osborn

    The housekeeper at the children’s home.


    Rumoured to be in love with Dr. Renfield.
    Very high handed with her staff, but docile with Dr. Renfield.
    Displays racist characteristics in subtle forms.
    Dr. Renfield

    Rumoured to have romantic affairs with his female staff.


    Berry observes that the Home is ‘Doc Renfield’s own private gyp game’
    (Hughes, p. 162), meaning that he runs his establishment for his own
    profit, instead of a desire to take genuine care of the children. He is
    blatantly racist. 
     
    THEMES
    Racism
    This theme is apparent when Berry was being considered for employment
    at the Home. Mrs. Osborn was concerned about where Berry would sleep,
    implying that he could not sleep with the white servants because he was
    considered to be beneath them. His salary was also cut due to his race, and
    he was overworked, with no discussions of days off, ‘everybody was
    imposing on him in that taken-for-granted way white folks do with Negro
    help.’ (Hughes, 162).
    Even more importantly, when the unfortunate accident occurred with the
    child, there was no attempt at discerning what led to the incident, but
    blame was laid on the obvious person – Berry. As a result, he was relieved
    of his job in a hail of racist slurs. The students will be placed in their peer
    groups to analyze various aspects of the story.

    Oppression
     The theme of oppression is expressed repetitively throughout this story.
    White workers and superiors kept expecting Milberry to do more and
    more. Milberry’s response to these requests was a quiet acceptance
    without bitterness because he was happy and thankful enough to have this
    job and food.
    In the story Milberry found happiness in helping the crippled children at
    play during his brief rest period. At first the nurses were hesitant whether
    they should allow it or not. At the end of the story the nurses had changed
    their mind frame about Berry and would come looking for and demanding
    his immediate help.
    In his typical nature in responding to and accepting their demand he
    unknowingly caused his own demise.
    While Berry was helping a boy in a wheelchair down the stairs, due to
    know fault of Berry’s own doing, the boy fell out of the chair onto the
    grass and the wheelchair onto the walk.
    In the fall the boy was not hurt but the wheelchairs back was snapped off.
    In this scene Langston Hughes uses the wheelchair as a symbol of
    Milberry’s undoing.

    The wheelchair’s falling represents Berry’s falling from the grace of the
    white people’s acceptance. The snapped back of the wheelchair
    foreshadows Berry’s immediate termination of employment.

    Even though it was the white nurses responsibility and job they quickly
    and gladly placed all the blame for the accident upon Berry. This truly
    exemplifies the use of oppression of white people over blacks.

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