The House with the Grape-vine (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: H. E. Bates
- First Published: 1959
- Type of Plot: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: The 1950's
- Setting: England
- Principal Characters: The small boy, The father, The old woman
- Genres: Short fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: Rural or country life, England or English people, Loneliness, Edible plants, Grapes, Nostalgia
- Locales: England
The Story
A small boy growing up in a factory town in England enjoys hearing his father describe what the place was like before it became industrialized. The boy is fascinated to learn that most of the older houses were once covered by grapevines, on which small, dark grapes grew. That his father, when he was eight, worked in a grapevine-covered farmhouse half the day while going to school only part-time is especially appealing. The boy imagines such a life as ideal, but his father reveals that he hated working there, although he will not explain why. The romantic aspects of...
[The entire page is 945 words long]
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