Jim The Boy
Jim’s Journey Into Adulthood
Jim glass, the main character, is an average ten year old boy who lives in the rural town of Aliceville, North Carolina during the Great Depression. Jim’s father died a week before he was born and his mother and three uncles raise him. From Jim’s tenth birthday until the time he turns eleven, several events occur that mark the start of his journey into adulthood.
On Jims tenth birthday, he feels as though he is a lot older and more independent because his age has two digits just like his uncles. Jim decides to go into the field with his uncles to hoe corn but when they get there and start working Jim cannot keep up and gets off track by throwing rocks. Even though he has two digits to his age and he has gotten a year older, he still is mentally and physically a child.
All of the area schools are being closed and everyone will be bused to a central school meaning that the “mountain boys” and the “town boys” will be at the same school. Jim’s grandfather stays in the mountains and he has never met him before but the “mountain boys” know him. They also know of stories about his father that even Jim did not know and he thought that he had heard them all. This incident makes Jim think about his father even more- Jim is named after his father’s spirit.
Cissy, Jim’s mother, did not take Jim’s father’s death too well and she has not tried to remarry since. His uncles feel as though if she remarries she will get over his father and so they set her up with a salesman. Jim spies in on his mother’s conversation as she agrees to talk to him. “Jim understood that he was witnessing a transaction so important and secret that he was not supposed to see it.” When his mom rejects him and walks away and calls Jim’s name –he knew she was talking to his father spirit- he realizes how important a part his father still plays in his mothers’ life.
Jim’s uncles decide to take...
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