Jordan Byes

Ms.Wing

Pre-AP/ Period 1

Plum Plum Pickers

10/3/17

Plum Plum Pickers

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

struggling to maintain his humanity. Barrio’s use of despairing diction and imagery, complex

syntax, and sorrowful tone create a moment of epiphany in one man’s life.

To further explain, Raymond Barrio uses textual techniques such as various uses of

despairing diction and imagery to expand the writing. For instance, in the passage it states, “Still

grinning, knowing, everyone realizing that he had the upper hand, that would mean a loss of

hand, that would mean a loss of two or three out of each pickers pay that day, a huge windfall for

Morales.” After spendings days after days laboring in the fields, the boss of these hardworking

men is willing to take some, of what little money they receive, away. The boss is greedy and

does not seem to be worrisome of anyone but himself. On the other hand, an example of imagery

in the passage is, “Then with his last remaining energy, Manuel lifted his foot and clumsily

tripped over his own last bucket of cots. They rolled away in the direction of everyone's feet.”

The use of imagery helps express the struggle of humanity by showing how hard working these

men are. The determination shown to make a living to support themselves and their families is

expressed but how tiresome the men are.

To continue, complex syntax contributes to the moment of epiphany in one man’s life by

displaying the one issue by several techniques and sentence phrasing. Syntax is expressed in the

statement, “For men, Manuel dimly suspected are built for something, more important and less
trifling then the mere gathering of prunes and apricots, hour upon hour, decades upon decades,

insensibly, mechanically, ant like. The sentence structure used is thoughts being divided up by

the use of commas. The use of commas further explain the situation and give a deeper

understanding. Another example of syntax is, “Despite his crude, ignorant manner, showing that

he was one of them, that he’d started with them, that he’d suffered all the sordid deprivations

with them, he was actually the shrewdest, smartest, richest cannibal in forty countries around.”

The syntax being used is the use of alliteration being divided up by commas. The sentence is

dramatized making the meaning of the sentence more emphasized.

Finally, tone was used to create epiphany by demonstrating the injustice of Manuel and

the other workers lives. For example, “Men are supposed to experience a certain sense of honor

and pride or else they are dead before they die.” The tone is sorrowful because these men are so

willing to take any job, that they will take cruel injustice from the men on top of them. The men

don’t stand up for themselves due to the fact that they are just as expendable as the next guy.

Therefore, the men lose their sense of pride and hope for better lives. Another example of tone is,

“You promised to take nothing! Manuel heard himself saying.” Manuel and his co-workers don’t

make a lot of money to begin with, so for their boss to take some money, even when promising

not to, shows how selfish and greedy the men in charge are. These hard working men make a lot

of money for those men and don’t get a lot in return; injustice is proven by the unequal and

unfair pay of the workers.

In conclusion, in the passage ​Plum Plum Pickers ​by Raymond Barro, the use of diction

and imagery, complex syntax, and courageous tone created a moment of epiphany in one man’s

life. The use of diction and imagery made the writing more relatable and understanding,
meanwhile the use of complex syntax gave the writing more emphasis on the issues that

encouraged Manuel to speak up. The sorrowful tone, however, is what tied the whole writing

together by setting appealing to emotion to show the injustice that helped Manuel experience the

epiphany in his life.