The Gleaner (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: H. E. Bates
- First Published: 1934
- Type of Plot: Lyric
- Time of Work: Probably the early 1930's
- Setting: Probably rural England
- Principal Characters: The gleaner
- Genres: Realism, Short fiction, Lyric story
- Subjects: Suffering, Memory, Nature, Rural or country life, Working class, Survivalism, Heroes or heroism, Old age or elderly people
- Locales: England
The Story
An old woman toils slowly up a hill from her village to the harvested field where she will glean scraps of stalks and rubble after the plowing, which has been a right traditionally reserved for the rural poor for many centuries in England. She reaches the gate of the field, passes through, and, sack in hand, bends to her gleaning. It is noon on an early autumn day, and the sun beats down mercilessly on the gleaner. She works quickly and anxiously; it is a race against time because her occupation is confined to the daylight hours, and she fears the arrival of other...
[The entire page is 1458 words long]
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