"Adult" is Just an Age Distinction: Adults & Children in "Black Cherries"

This is an essay I wrote for my junior year honors english class. This essay explores the distinction, or lack there of, between adults and children in Grace Stone Coates collection of short stories, "Black Cherries". The story follows a young girl named Veve and her life with her family in rural Kansas. The family dynamics are complex and complicated. Veve and Teressa's father was previously married to another woman whom he had two children with, Karl and Augusta. In his current marriage he constantly compares his wife to his former wife, beats his children from the previous marriage, and berrates Teressa. He also is frustrated with his current wife as she tries to bear him a son, but has countless miscarriages and still births that ultimately result in her death. The story begins with Veve at the age of five and ends when she is about 12 or 13.