John Grisham Thesis

1 INTRODUCTION
This thesis analyzes John Grisham’s novel A Painted House, specifically, how the life of a boy in the 1950s rural South is portrayed. Grisham is mostly known for his legal thrillers, and this novel is important because of author’s deviation from his traditional topics concerning lawyers and legal situations (Pringle 2). The novel covers a few weeks of the end of summer and depicts the protagonist’s life and experiences during the time. It is also important to note that the novel is set around the time that the author was born; therefore, it describes the setting of the time as close as possible.
John Grisham was born in 1955, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and spent there his early years (Pringle 1-2, 65). Grisham studied law, and this is the main reason why his novels focus on lawyers and law firms (Pringle 2). His first novel, A Time to Kill, was published in 1988 and did not become best-selling. Then, his second thriller, The Firm, allowed him to become a full-time author and guaranteed success (Pringle 2). Despite that most of his novels are related to the legal field, there are a few novels that do not deal with law; these are A Painted House (published in 2001) and Skipping Christmas (published in 2001), and Bleachers

The protagonist, Luke Chandler, and his family who work in the cotton fields are at the center of the novel. They employ the so-called “hill people,” who come from the Ozarks, the highland region in the United States, and Mexicans who immigrate to the United States. The novel covers six weeks in the summer, during which Luke Chandler witnesses several violent incidents, such as fights and deaths, and they involve people who work for the Chandler family. The protagonist is a seven-year-old boy, and he describes his life being an adult, but from the child’s perspective. Because Luke is a boy, these violent events affect him in different