Split Cherry Tree

Narrator Dave Sexton is the protagonist of "Split Cherry Tree." His father, Luster, makes a pistol-packing surprise visit to school; and Professor Herbert is the firm-handed teacher who quells the...

"Split Cherry Tree" is about a son and his father and the two worlds they live in: the working-class rural world and the more educated and refined new class. Dave Sexton, the boy, is in between the...

Although no specific date is given by Jesse Stuart in his short story, "Split Cherry Tree," it is no doubt set during the 1930s. (It was first published in 1939.) The action of the story takes...

Dave's conflict is with his father. After Professor Herbert punishes the boys who have split the cherry tree in Eif Crabtree's orchard, Dave is worried about how he will explain what has happened...

"Split Cherry Tree" is a fine, old fashioned short story by the Kentucky writer Jesse Stuart. It tells the story of Dave Sexton, who climbs and badly damages a cherry tree on private property...

Dave's relationship with his Pa at the beginning of the story is based on a clear understanding that physical punishment awaited him if he crossed his father's ways or rules. "He might be called a...

Both men are initially presented as similar in that both serve as mentors to Dave and both are convinced of the correctness of their position and ignorant of the valid reasons for taking another...

Pa had very llittle formal schooling when he was growing up - "jist readin', writin', and cipherin'." - and doesn't understand the need for anything more when the story begins. He is a hard worker...

While Pa changes his opinion of Professor Herbert and his ideas about germs, he certainly undergoes change in deeper ways. When Dave returns home late, his father interrogates him and learns that...

"Split Cherry Tree" is probably the most memorable short story by the former poet laureate of Kentucky, Jesse Stuart (1907-1984). Several ironies can be found within the story. One takes place in...

(eNotes educators may only answer one question per response. If you need more help, please resubmit other questions separately.) Dave uses the idiom "I was shaking like a leaf in the wind" to...

Dave's returning home late because he was kept behind at school by the principal, Professor Herbert. Dave and a group of other boys broke a neighbor's cherry tree when they were out on a school...

Pa changed his mind about Dave's studies and the way in which things were being taught after he had the opportunity to meet Professor Herbert and learn more about what he was doing with the...

At the beginning of the story, Dave feels ashamed of his father, a farming man from the hills who doesn't speak good English, when he says he is going to go to high school with Dave the next day...

Dave comes to understand that he is proud of his background, proud of coming from a dirt-poor farming family isolated back in the hill country. He realizes that he is fortunate to be getting an...

Dave is concerned about the differences in education, experience, and attitude toward life that will be very obvious if his Pa comes to the school with him. Dave recognizes that his Pa had not been...

The quiet, reasonable manner of Professor Herbert, along with his teaching through examples is very effective and makes a lasting impression on Pa and Dave both. After Dave is made to stay after...

Author Jesse Stuart, a native of Kentucky, knows the language of his native state, and he uses regional and colloquial speech patterns in his dialogue to beautifully bring the character of Luster...

After becoming better acquainted as the day passes that Luster Sexton visits the school, Professor Herbert and Luster reach an amiable understanding of each other and earn each other's respect. At...

Luster Sexton "educates" Dave about his future by explaining both by words and by example that Dave must "go on to school" so that he will not become "a dead leaf" like him. Dave must also be...

Pa initially was upset merely because Dave hadn't gotten home from school in time to do his chores. "What in th' world has kept you so? Why ain't you been here to help me with this work?" After...

In Split Cherry Tree, Dave's first problem with his father concerns being late for chores. He knows that his father would whip him for failing to show up on time, regardless of his reasons for...

"Split Cherry Tree" is set in a rural area of Appalachia, a mountainous region that historically had many isolated farms and small settlements. Stuart's use of dialect, description of the chores...

(eNotes educators only answer one question per response. If you need further help, please resubmit questions separately.) As Professor Herbert attempts to explain to Pa some of the activities of...

Professor Herbert defends his decision to take the students to Eif Crabtree's orchard by saying that the members of his science class were looking for snakes, toads, lizards, butterflies, and dry...

Pa is a very good father. However, that is not clear at first, so let's trace out how we learn of Pa's goodness. The story opens with Dave and some other teenage boys, on a high school field trip,...

In the beginning of the story, Luster Sexton seems to typify the backwoods country bumpkin with very little education and knowledge of the world other than his immediate environment. When Dave...

This quote comes from the short story "Split Cherry Tree." It is spoken by the narrator's father and is in a regional Kentucky dialect. The narrator has had to stay after school to work off the...

Jesse Stuart's short story, "Split Cherry Tree" is an enduring narrative of the struggles of rural people outside the cultural mainstream as well as the problems of the "generation gap." Two...

Pa makes these remarks towards the end of the story after Professor Herbert's taken him on a guided tour of the school and shown him what modern education is all about. Once incredibly hostile to...

Dave Sexton was required by his teacher to stay after school in order to work off the damage done to private property during a school field trip. While on a science field trip with Professor...

The protagonist of the story is the main character or hero, and the antagonist is the opposing force (sometimes referred to as the villain). Assuming that you are speaking of "The Split Cherry...

In "Split Cherry Tree," Dave is anxious about his father's coming to the school because he will stand out as an anachronism at his school, and Dave fears he may "start something." When Dave and his...

Dave's father is a formidable and menacing presence anywhere he goes. He brings a gun with him to meet with Dave's professor and mentions multiple times that guns kill teachers and rich men just as...

The meeting between Luster Sexton and Professor Herbert begins badly; however, the results of it are positive and Dave benefits from this visit. While Luster Sexton is angry with Dave for being...

I'm sorry, but I don't recognize the split cherry tree story. Perhaps if you post a brand-new question featuring the title and author, someone else can help you. If possible, please use the story...

Author Jesse Stuart based "Split Cherry Tree" on information he picked up while he served as the principal of a rural Kentucky school, and he may have seen a similarity between the character he...

Pa goes to school with Dave because he is angry and feels Professor Herbert is out of place. He doesn't agree with the educational activities and techniques being used at the school and doesn't...

In “Split Cherry Tree,” Dave must take responsibility for the broken tree limbs, as both men in positions of authority in his life are fair and honest men who understand the importance of atoning...

In the short story "Split Cherry Tree" by Jesse Stuart, a boy from the hills named Dave is the first of his family to attend high school. After he and some classmates break a cherry tree by...

Professor Herbert at the end of the story tells Dave he can go home and pay his debt by cleaning another time because his father is outside waiting for him. Dave goes and tells his father what the...

While he was at school on a field trip, Dave and five of his friends chased a lizard up a cherry tree. Under the strain of their collective weight, the cherry tree split and was ruined. The tree...

When an irate Luster Sexton accompanies Dave to the high school, Professor Herbert is accosted by Pa, but he remains calm and civil, and speaks warmly to him. When Dave and Pa arrive early at the...

Although Dave is a product of the more modern world, Dave's father represents the old-time values of the past. After Luster has spent the day at school, he finally realizes that he can no longer...

Professor Herbert invites Luster to spend the day at the school to show him new education methods and to help defuse his frustration at Dave being required to stay after school to pay for his part...

In Jesse Stuart's "Spilit Cherry Tree," Dave reflects that Professor Herbert, "who had never lived in the hills," didn't know the way the hill boys had to work so that they could go to school....

Pa has learned that modern day education's a lot different to how it used to be in his time. When he was a boy, Dave's dad received only a very basic education: reading, writing, and arithmetic....

When Dave's pa was growing up, they only taught "... readin', writin', and cipherin'. We didn't have all this bug larnin', frog larnin', and findin' germs on your teeth and in the middle o' black...

Luster is Dave’s father in “Split Cherry Tree.” He is a simple farmer, quite out of touch with modernity. He does not understand why Dave has to stay behind at school for two hours to work in order...

Professor Herbert says that Dave can't go home as a punishment for being one of the boys who split the cherry tree. He and five other boys had climbed the tree all at once to catch a lizard for a...