34 pages • 1 hour read
A Taste of Blackberries
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaThemes
A Child’s Perception of Mortality
One reason A Taste of Blackberries was so revolutionary was that it described death and loss from a child’s point of view. Characters like the narrator and Heather are more cautious than Jamie, who “would do such crazy comic falls that you’d wonder how he kept from breaking his neck” (38). Nevertheless, when they and the other kids are debating whether Jamie is dead when he leaves in the ambulance, it’s the most unfathomable option in their minds.
Once the narrator learns of Jamie death, he starts asking himself more existential questions, such as “What kinds of things could you do when you were dead? Or was dead just plain dead and that’s all?” (42). These questions are the same things that many adults ask themselves.
Some of the adults tell the children that Jamie is in heaven now, as evident when Martha talks to the narrator about Jamie’s death: “‘He’s in heaben,’ she said. ‘He’s going to get to play with all the angels.’ She seemed happy for him” (66). Martha is only four, so she doesn’t quite know enough to cry or understand what a funeral is, and so she’s left at home while Jamie is buried. Other adults, like Mrs. Mullins, tell the narrator that there’s no way to know what happens when you die until it happens to you. The narrator must learn that children and adults are equally unable to answer these questions about death. Somehow, this is comforting, and it helps shape the narrator’s perspective on death and life.
Children never fully notice many aspects of death until someone they love passes away. The cemetery suddenly has new meaning for the narrator now that Jamie is buried there. The funeral cars are another example. The narrator recalls how he and Jamie had seen them before and “had even talked about how [they]’d like to be rich enough to have one. [They] never thought about how they carried people to funerals” (67). None of these aspects are hidden away from children, but they never fully understand the significant role they play when someone dies.
The book addresses all these important elements, not just for the younger audience but also for any adults in the young readers’ lives or those who read it with their kids. Adults who read this book can better understand how a child might process the loss of a loved one, the kinds of questions they might have, and the type of help the children might need but not know how to communicate.
The Impact of a Death on a Community
One of the primary themes in A Taste of Blackberries is how a death affects a community. The neighborhood where the narrator and Jamie live is one where everyone knows each other, and even the grumpiest of neighbors are willing to help out in times of need. When Jamie is rushed to the hospital, the narrator’s mom and Mrs. Houser waste no time stepping in to help with the children.
After Jamie’s death, all who knew him feel the sorrow. At the parlor, “there [are] people all around, talking in whispers, or not talking. Some [are] crying” (48). In a more private moment of grieving, Mrs. Mullins does what she can to comfort the narrator. As they sit alone in her garden, he thinks, “I let my eyes wander around again to the grass, the flowers, the birds—everything was alive. I was alive. Mrs. Mullins was alive” (62). She’s the one who helps him know that he’ll never fully understand Jamie’s death and that not knowing is okay. Sometimes a member of the community who isn’t family is better equipped to help in the healing process, or the person who needs to heal can more easily receive support from someone outside the immediate family.
From the time that Jamie is stung until he’s buried, neighbors surround his house and the neighboring houses to help his family. The narrator’s mom constantly goes between the houses “with pots of food, or bringing Martha and the baby over, or taking them back” (65). At the funeral, the parlor chapel is filled with “more flowers than [the narrator has] ever seen before” (73). The narrator finds Heather among the crowd of their friends and knows he isn’t alone in grieving their friend. Finally, the narrator promises to visit Jamie’s family all the time and help out the way Jamie would if he were still alive. In their greatest hour of need, Jamie’s family is showered with love by their neighbors. This theme underscores the importance of community and the difference that one person can make, both the person who has died and the person who is there for another to help during the time of grief.
The Five Stages of Grief
A Taste of Blackberries explores the five stages of grief. This is one of the reasons that the book is acclaimed for handling the topics of death and grief for children. When the narrator’s mother tells him that Jamie has died, the narrator experiences the first stage of grief, denial: “I felt trapped. I didn’t want to listen to her tell me lies about Jamie” (39). He’s convinced that Jamie must be pretending and that he isn’t really dead.
Next, the narrator enters the second phase of grief: bargaining. He refuses to eat any meals and spends much time in the bathtub, alone with his thoughts. He’s convinced that if he continues to do these things, “somehow everything [will] be all right and it [won’t] be true that Jamie [is] dead” (67). He keeps this up until after the funeral. Once Jamie is buried, he knows that bargaining won’t bring Jamie back to life. More than that, he remembers that Jamie wouldn’t want him to be sad, lonely, or hungry. Living a life full of joy will bring more honor to Jamie’s memory, and eating or smiling isn’t a betrayal of their friendship.
The narrator then experiences the third phase of grief: anger. After viewing Jamie’s body in the casket, the narrator is overcome with emotion and races outside. There, he “snatch[es] a yellow bloom from the stem and [begins to tear] it to shreds” (49). Later, he regrets this outburst and is ashamed that he took out his anger on an innocent flower.
The fourth phase of grief, depression, is the most prevalent in the book. The narrator frequently isolates himself from his family, even though he longs for their embrace. He tries to distract himself to keep from crying, and everything he sees reminds him of Jamie. He holds in his tears until he sees his mother cross the street to Jamie’s house. After that, “the tears [keep] coming until [he has] them smeared all over [his] face” (53). His father then comes in and holds him while he sobs in his arms.
Then, the narrator experiences the final phase of grief: acceptance. Once Jamie is buried, he no longer feels that he’s betraying him by eating or smiling. However, mixed feelings about being happy while Jamie is gone continue to come up every now and then; grieving isn’t a linear process. Once he drops off the basket of blackberries at Jamie’s mother’s house, he leaves feeling lighter: “In my relief, I felt that Jamie, too, was glad the main sadness was over” (85). It will take time, but healing is possible, and it has begun.
Unlock all 34 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: