Plum Plum Pickers

The Plum Plum Pickers Explication
In the passage from The Plum Plum Pickers by Raymond Barrio, Barrio suggests that there is a more definitive view of what it means to be alive and more importantly to exist by effectively using imagery and exploring the substance of the setting to form an opinion about existence. Barrio adequately uses repetition and allusions to create a smooth transition from the setting to character development to eventually to build a significant climax of the brief excerpt of the story. In doing so, the author establishes his theme or message about existence and making a bridge between modernist and post-modernist mindset.
In the first section of the passage, there is an absolute influence in emphasizing the mood through imagery and incorporating the images by using shortened sentences to create the feelings of the farm workers. Immediately there is a contradiction of terms as it applies to the text’s connection to the title, “he was trapped in an endless maze of apricot trees…” (line 1), the title implies that the foreigners are plum pickers, the apricot trees show that there is probably a play on words. Plum, aside from being a fruit, can mean a desirable or excellent thing. To the workers, the plums may be represented by the antagonist Manuel’s struggle. It is equality and power that may be the “plums” of the people. As the section proceeds, the next notable feature of Barrio’s style is the short sentences as well as the repetition that occurs within the phrases. The constant use of words like, brute, wreck, beast and even referencing the Sun and the effect it has bearing down on the people below. These words are not commonly associated with the happy times that come with work. The words represent the struggles the people on the farm face during the day. Analyzing the first couple of paragraphs it is important to note how quickly the transition is between the sections signifying the uneasy speed of quickly life transitions and how just as quick as time came it goes away just as quickly. The imagery not only helps clear a mood it also helps develop a conclusion about the central characters. The use of words like beast and predator make the people feel as though they are animals and have no concept of what is human. It is at this point that Barrio introduces his primary theme of his work.
Though using many of the same features present in the first section, the second section, paragraphs 3-6, explore more of the character development. In the third paragraph Barrio uses the same short sentence techniques, but only in this excerpt there are little to no vowels present in these sentences. This builds onto the personification of the humans as machines and animals. Shortly thereafter the antagonist, Manuel, has a moment of humanity. “His half-filled bucket slipped from his grasp and fell in slow motion, splattering the fruit he’d so laboriously picked.” After this line we are finally given a name to the two most powerful figures in the story, Manuel and Roberto Morales. When using these names Barrio uses another play on words to provide an in-depth perspective about how the roles of a protagonist and an antagonist are reversed in the scenario. Manuel’s name can be interpreted as he is a representation of “man” or that he represents the “manual” labor that is involved with farm working. Roberto Morales the unlikely protagonist of the story can be represented as one who “robs” morals or is himself without the moral capability to accept and forgive. Finally, in the end of the passage, much like Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate before him Roberto is described as having washed away the shame he faced being “one of them” he has moved on to higher plane while still being trapped on the surface of Earth. Ironically, Manuel can be seen as a very similar Christ like figure of who fought the same battle as Manuel.
Finally, in the concluding paragraphs Barrio sets up a climax by beautifully incorporating all the aspects of his earlier sections and finally setting the scene of the “final showdown” with Morales. Interestingly, Barrio only clarifies that Manuel is the only real human of the bunch, “The other exhausted animals studied the tableau through widening eyes. It was so unequal.” The author then shows that the only true human succeeded by fighting for what was theirs. “Then with his last remaining energy, Manuel lifted his foot and clumsily tipped over his own last bucket of cots.” After being self-assured he is the winner, Manuel reflects that there would have to be some kind of punishment, but he knew he would be looked at as a human rather than the machines and animals they thought they were. Barrio makes an allusion to the story of Don Gaspar de Portola who explored the western coast of America as it is also the place where the story takes place. The story of Gaspar was that he was sent by the Spaniards to colonize the western coast of California. He ended up making a big miscalculation and ended up causing the lives of his crew, but the lesson he learned was that he did not give up the fight even though he would face consequences. And in the latest lines of the passage he finally outright states the theme of his work, to explain what it means to exist. “Men are built to experience a certain sense of honor and pride. Or else they are dead before they die. In retaliation he fought for his pride and his sense of honor.
The passage itself suggests what it means to be human and why it is there are heroes within all of us. The passage is a great example of how easy it can be to sacrifice traditional writing for simpler techniques that employ a means of understanding a much broader topic.