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Jordan Cox

Ms. Moss

Pre-AP English, Period 1

27 September 2017

Plum Plum Pickers Essay

Raymond Barrio’s excerpt from ​Plum Plum Pickers​ depicts the life of a migrant worker

struggling to maintain his humanity. Barrio’s use of animalistic imagery, long--drawn out syntax,

and bold tone creates a moment of epiphany in one man’s life.

Raymond Barrio uses animalistic imagery to explain the loss of humanity that the main

character, Manuel, experiences along with his fellow workers. Manuel works a job which

requires extensive labor that strips away his humanity one piece at a time and is employed by a

company that often neglects the needs of the laborers and disregards the rights they are entitled

to. This exhausting labor and relentless mistreatment causes Manuel feel inhuman, especially

while he’s working through “the endlessly unending piling up of bucket upon box upon crate

upon stack upon rack upon mound upon mountain. He picked a mountain of cots automatically.

An automator. A beast” (Barrio). Barrio compares Manuel to a beast during his day’s work and

dehumanizes him to illustrate how Manuel feels in this moment. He feels brutish and maltreated

from his struggle to finish the extensive task at hand. The use of animalistic imagery perfectly

displays a loss of humanity in Manuel, but in the few moments when he does feel human and the

imagery is slightly different along with the syntax.

Barrio alternates between fragmented and choppy and long, well thought out sentences to

differentiate the times Manuel feels human and when he does not. Manuel considers the rows of

apricot trees to be “the blackest bars on the jails of hell” and convinces himself that there had to
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be an end, “there had to be a way out. Locked. … The buckets and the crates kept piling up

higher. Brute. He stopped … for some water, … drank the holy water in great brute gulps …

letting it spill down his torn shirt to cool his exhausted body” (Barrio). The syntax varies

between fragmented sections such as “locked” and “brute” to further illustrate his

dehumanization, then transfers to long sentences in the end when he feels any moment of relief.

These lengthy sentences are normally utilized when Manuel is in any state of relief or feels at

least somewhat human. This kind of syntax helps reveal hidden emotions from the main

character, but even also helps depict the tone of the piece.

Manuel finally becomes fed up with the mistreatment he and all of his fellow workers

have suffered through leading to the expression of a bold tone when he stands up against it and

has a monumental epiphany. He decides to rebel when his superior explains to the workers that

he is going to take more money from them and as a response, Manuel “lifted his foot and

clumsily tipped over his last bucket of cots … all the other pickers moved toward their own

buckets … and took an ominous position over them, straddling their feet over them” (Barrio). It

is very brave of them to challenge their superior but this clearly demonstrates their willingness to

sacrifice their pay and even their jobs over having their hard-earned money taken from them.

These workers are so tired of being taken advantage of and are finally fighting for their humanity

and the respect they deserve. The overall message of this short story is to fight for humanity and

to take a stand against unfairness and inequality in any situation.

The use of animalistic imagery, long-in depth syntax, and a bold tone illustrate how

Manuel struggles to hold onto his humanity and rights. This all resultes in him having an

epiphany when he realized this mistreatment has gone on for too long and needs to be stopped.

The author’s purpose is to emphasize just how important it is that people hold onto their
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humanity and that everyone be treated fairly so no one is taken advantage of.
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Works Cited

Barrio, Raymond. ​The Plum Plum Pickers​. Bilingual Review = Editorial Bilingue, 1984.