John Grisham Symbolism

Have you ever read a book and it related your life, and past memories? That is what John Grisham’s book, A Painted House, did for himself. John Grisham is a best selling author with his book A Painted House, and many others. However, John Grisham has not always been an author. He was a lawyer which helped him with his career as an author. In fact, his inspiration for his first few books came from the courtroom itself, “those legal thrillers like “The Pelican Brief” and “The Brethren” (Dickey). His inspiration for his book A Painted House came some from his actual life. However, the book A Painted House is set on a cotton farm in rural Arkansas in 1953. The story is told by a seven year old boy named Luke, and the readers are taken on a trip of what a summer 's like on that farm. Along with Luke’s parents and grandparents, they are helped by Mexicans and hill people. John Grisham’s life influenced his novel A Painted House by his love for baseball to relate to his main character and using

The other literary element used to develop A Painted House was symbolism. A major symbol in this story is the painted house itself. A painted house represents wealth, so if a person had a painted house they were wealthy. Hank used this against Luke as he said “ours house’s got paint on it. White paint. You ever see paint, boy?” (Grisham 74). The tone that Hank is using shows that Hank is the “better” one because his house is painted. Painted houses also established social classes without stating it. Driving down the road and looking out the window seeing a painted house instantly shows wealth. This symbol helped develop A Painted House, and also the characters in the story. Throughout the story, using both direct characterization and symbolism, Grisham establishes classism and how characters were organized into certain classes in the