Berry Short Answer Questions

Kristian Espinal 9MG

1. What was the issue that Mrs. Osborn was having with Berry, regarding his
accommodations?
Answer: The issue that Mrs. Osborn was having regarding Berry’s accommodations was
that Mrs. Osborn was conflicted on where Berry would sleep, since It’s hinted that she
doesn’t want a black man to sleep with other white employees.

2. What was the rumor about Mrs. Osborn’s feelings for Dr. Renfield?
Answer: The rumor disclosed about Mrs. Osborn’s feelings for Dr. Renfield was that
Mrs. Osborn was in love with Dr. Renfield.

3. What position did Mrs. Osborn hold at the establishment?

Mrs. Osborn was the housekeeper at the establishment.

4. List the tasks that berry was assigned. What was his view on the number of tasks?
The tasks Berry was assigned to were: Cooking the kitchen, made the fire for the cook,
set water to boil. Peeling potatoes and other things, washed the dishes, scoured the pots
and pans, scrubbed the floors, carried in wood for the fireplace, polished the waitress’s
silver, ice their water, cleaned the cellar, reshelved the lining in the closet and cleaned the
dining room windows washed. As stated in the story, “Milberry knew they took him for a
work horse, a fool” So Milberry was not oblivious.

5. What underhanded quality did Berry sense in the house?

Berry sensed the fact that they didn’t treat the crippled children nearly as good as when
the parents of the crippled children came around.

6. How did Berry treat the children? Give examples.

Throughout the story, Berry treated the children like his own siblings. The children loved
Berry and Berry loved the children. Some examples are: “The children became
Milberry’s friends. They adored him and he them. They called him Berry.”.

7. List ways in which the children’s treatment of Berry differ from the adults.
1. The children were never racist and didn’t care about Berry’s skin color. While the
adults were.
2. The children treated Berry as one of their own and so did Berry. The adults acted
superior.
3. When the accident happened, the child involved was never mad at Berry. The adults
were furious but for the wrong reasons.
4. The children respected Berry unlike the adults.

8. What disastrous event regarding Berry and a child?

While at a trip to the beach, Berry was pushing a child’s wheelchair as requested and the
child leaned forward, tripping. The wheelchair broke and Berry was fired.
9. How did Dr. Renfield visualize this incident would impact the business?
Dr. Renfield did not care about the child, he thought the parents of the child would
threaten to sue and the home would gain lots of bad publicity.

10. What point of view is used to tell the story?

The point of view, omniscient third person narrator is used. Where the narrator knows
everything and is not involved in the story.

Berry: The Essay

 By Kristian Espinal 9MG
This essay is about a piece of literature written by Kristin Hunter, called “Berry”. Which is
about a black man called Milberry Jones who has come to work at a home for crippled children.
In this story, Milberry faces racism and prejudice. I will be critically analyzing this piece
Throughout the story, Milberry is treated disgustingly horrid, for nothing but the color of
his skin color. The first subtle hints of racism we see are “Lo and behold, he turned out to be
colored! Mrs. Osborn saw him the minute he got out of the station wagon but there was nothing
to be done about it.”. From this alone, we can infer that Mrs. Osborn was displeased with Berry
and would send him back if she had the chance.
While Berry is working at the home, he has many relationships with those around him.
But they are not all good. His relationships with his coworkers were not as good, as he was
untrusted by the nurses and taken as a work horse by those around him, except the children.
Berry’s relationship with Mrs. Osborn was hanging by a lose thread as I would describe it, as she
and the other adults were not comfortable with him around. We learn more about his relationship
with the adults in the paragraph, “The grown up white folks only spoke to him when they had
some job for him to do, or when they were kidding about him being dark and talking flat and
southern, and mispronouncing words.” This right here tells us the adults did not really like Berry.
And were even racists at times “kidding about him being dark”
Although Berry’s relationship with the adults were bad, his relationship with the children
was much better. As seen in the line, “: “The children became Milberry’s friends. They adored
him and he them. They called him Berry.” We know that they were good friends, and that the
children adored him. Unlike the adults, the children were never racist and rude, they never even
treated him different. And Berry did not either. We see that the adults never really were
compassionate with the crippled children, and only cared about the money. Both Berry and the
children respected each other, and both treated each other as equal individuals. So, in short,
through this whole story, the children were the only people who were never racist or demeaning
to Berry, and Berry did not treat the children as objects only needed to be cared for.
The work demands for Berry were very high, doing about eleven tasks per day with no
breaks whatsoever. The work demands increased when Berry’s coworkers made Berry do some
of their work. This shows us they take Berry for granted, or as he describes it, “A work horse, a
fool” which told us that Berry knew he was being taken for granted. With all the work Berry was
doing, he only earned 8 dollars per week, which if you do the math, roughly translates to earning
$1.05 dollars a day. What makes this even worse, was that Berry was cut two dollars of his
original salary which was ten dollars per week. Solely for the color of his skin, as seen in here,
“’Ten dollars a week’ said Mrs. Osborn raising her eyes. ‘Well, pay the darkie eight,’ said Dr.
Renfield”. This was when Mrs. Osborn was conflicted on where Berry would stay.
Berry’s reaction to the situation unfolding was unexpected. Everyone thought Berry
was gullible, dumb and idiotic, while Berry was certainly not any of those. Berry knew that they
thought of him as a gullible idiot, and made it clear in the line, “Milberry knew they took him for
a work horse, a fool”. Here is when we see Berry is not dumb and knows what’s going on.
However, it is stated here, “But at the Home it wasn’t the work that really troubled him, or the
fact nobody ever said anything about a day off or a little extra pay. No, he’d had many jobs like
this before, where they worked you to death.” Berry had experience with jobs with racist and
overwhelming environments. His responses to this all were mostly negative and his other
response to sensing something weird and fishy at the establishment. “’It’s sho phoney, this here
place,’ Milberry said to himself ‘Funny how the food ain’t nearly so good ‘cept when some ma
or pa or some chile is visiting here – then when they gone, it drops right back down again.” This
along with his other two reactions to the unfairness and injustice in the establishment are all
negative. Although he couldn’t display them publicly or he’d certainly get fired.
Many uses of symbolism are used. One use is the wheelchair that breaks at the end
of the story. The wheelchair represents the limitations Berry had, not being able to speak freely,
or take any breaks. Much like how the crippled child is limited to only being able to move
around with a wheelchair. It also symbolizes the helplessness both Berry and the crippled child
felt at that moment, the child crying and scared, and Berry feeling helpless as he could not save
the wheelchair. The broken wheelchair in my opinion symbolizes how something so wholesome
can turn sour in a matter of a seconds. Both Berry and the children were happy in a second, and
then sad in the other. The author uses symbolism to adds many meanings into a thing as simple
as a wheelchair.
In conclusion, Berry deals with tons of heavy topics like racism and prejudice.
The author uses a simple scenario to represent all of society in a time where racism was common
around the block. Berry represents the minorities and those who are oppressed, the adults
represent the ignorant racist white people, the crippled children represents those who are willing
to not be racist and treat everyone with kindness, and Dr. Renfields represents money hungry
business men who are ignorant and demeaning. In short, this story was brilliant.