Ashes By Susan Beth Pfeffer Summary

Ashleigh’s Betrayal Ashleigh is faced with a mind-numbing decision. In the short story Ashes, by Susan Beth Pfeffer, Ashleigh is a young girl with divorced parents. When her dad asks her to take money from her mom to get him out of debt, Ashleigh has to choose. She can either betray her mother and steal her emergency money or leave her father in a desperate situation. The story ends before this conflict can be resolved, yet the unrevealed ending is clear. It can be assumed that Ashleigh ultimately decided to take her mom’s money to help her dad because most of the commentary concerning her mother is negative while commentary concerning her father is positive, Ashleigh connects more deeply with her dad, and her mind perceives the sound of

“You’re one in a million,” it cried.”This supports the point that Ashleigh is influenced by the sound of her father’s car by illustrating that Ashleigh feels obligated to help her father when she “hears” the phrase “one in a million” coming from his car. The author uses personification(when a non-human thing is given human attributes) to convey that Ashleigh is feeling responsible for helping her father. This in turn influences Ashleigh to steal the money and give it to her father because she feels she has to help the dad that has loved her unconditionally throughout her life and lifted her up with so many compliments. The origin of this phrase that carries so much meaning for Ashleigh is located on page 2. In the short story Ashes, Susan Beth Pfeffer states “You’re the special one, Ashes. You’re the one-in-a-million-girl.” This quote shows that the phrase “one-in-a-million” holds a lot of meaning to Ashleigh, since her dad would regularly use it to tell her how special she is to him, which supports the point that Ashleigh was influenced to help her father because of the sound her father’s car seems to make to her. It means a lot to Ashleigh that her dad believes in her and thinks that she has potential. These feelings of belief and faith in Ashleigh are manifest in her father’s compliments and affectionate nicknames, one of these affectionate nicknames being the phrase “one-in-a-million”. According to Susan Beth Pfeffer in Ashes on page 2, “I knew I wasn’t a one-in-a-million girl, no matter how often dad told me I was. I still loved hearing him say it.” This supports the point that Ashleigh is influenced to help her father because of the sound of her father’s car