The Pain Tree Short Story Review

1. Who is your favorite character from the story and what kind of background do they come from? Why? (Use examples from Michelle Cliff's essay, If I Could Write This in Fire, I Would Write This in Fire)

I think my favorite characters from the story are Larissa and Lorraine because I really like how their relationship is presented in the story. Larissa comes from a black working-class background and Lorraine comes from a white-light skinned middle-class background and it is a good way to show Jamaican reality during the colonial era. It is a good raw depiction of Jamaican class and race divisions. It reminds me of Michelle's Cliffs essay when she talks about how Jamaican maids live for the people they serve, that as much as Lorraine can love Larissa, she is still part of the class that oppresses her. In the story we can see the clear class divisions between these two characters.


2. Why do you think Lorraine’s mother mocks the workers that want independence from England?

I think this is related to what Michelle Cliff was talking about the "light-skinned middle class" Jamaicans, how they replaced the British masters in terms of the dominating class. Lorraine's mother does not want to lose her class-privileges and therefore is fearful of a new social order that Jamaican Independence could bring. Even Lorraine talks about how her house was built by slaves.

3. What is a “pain tree” and how does it play a role in the story?

It is a tree that Jamaican women workers would go to and hammer nails into. Through this, they feel that they are giving their pain to the tree so they don't have to bear it. Larissa goes to the tree to give her pain to it due to her sons' deaths. Lorraine spies on her and finds her and asks her why she is hammering nails into the tree. I think that the tree is another way of showing the class divisions in Jamaica because Larissa says to Lorraine, "Maybe people like you don't need the Pain Tree," which is a very powerful statement.

4. What is the meaning of the line “people like me would always inherit the land, but they were the ones who already possessed the Earth”?

This quotation can have various interpretations. However, for me and from what I can see from the story, I believe that Lorraine said this because she knows that money or material wealth is not what really matters. This is because she talks about how the Pain Tree protects the working class women of Jamaica and how even though her class may have the wealth of the land, these working class women have the Earth because since they give their pain to the tree and have something to believe in, they receive a spiritual award. Although, I think in the end I think it is just a metaphor of Lorraine to express that she knows she belongs to the oppressing class.