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Berry

Millberry Jones, a young black man, is reluctantly hired by Mrs. Osborn as a kitchen worker at Dr. Renfield's Home for Crippled Children after the previous worker leaves. Berry is overworked and underpaid due to his race. When a child falls from his wheelchair in Berry's care, he is immediately fired without pay despite it not being his fault, exemplifying the racism and oppression faced by black workers at the time.

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162 views

Berry

Millberry Jones, a young black man, is reluctantly hired by Mrs. Osborn as a kitchen worker at Dr. Renfield's Home for Crippled Children after the previous worker leaves. Berry is overworked and underpaid due to his race. When a child falls from his wheelchair in Berry's care, he is immediately fired without pay despite it not being his fault, exemplifying the racism and oppression faced by black workers at the time.

Uploaded by

zaijah taylor4A
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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“Berry”

Summary
Berry is about a young black man called Millberry Jones who is
employed at Dr. Renfield’s Home for Crippled Children. He was
reluctantly employed by Mrs. Osborn, the housekeeper, because
the Scandinavian kitchen boy had left without notice, leaving her
no choice in hiring Berry. Her reluctance to hire Berry stemmed
from his race, which initiated questions such as where he would
sleep, as well as how the other employees would react to the
presence of a Negro. She had a meeting with Dr. Renfield and
they decided to hire Millberry on a reduced salary. He was
overworked and underpaid, but took solace in the children whom
he loved. An unfortunate incident occurred, however, where a
child fell from his wheelchair while in the care of Berry. The result
was that Berry was fired and given no salary for the week that he
had worked.
CHARACTERS
Millbury Jones (Berry)
A black male, approximately 20 years old.
Described as good natured and strong.
Poor and uneducated.
Very observant and intuitive about people and places.
Very good with children due to his gentleness.

Mrs. Osborn
The housekeeper at the children’s home.
Rumoured to be in love with Dr. Renfield.
Very high handed with her staff, but docile with Dr. Renfield.
Displays racist characteristics in subtle forms.

Dr. Renfield
Rumoured to have romantic affairs with his female staff.
Berry observes that the Home is ‘Doc Renfield’s own private gyp
game’ (Hughes, p. 162), meaning that he runs his establishment
for his own profit, instead of a desire to take genuine care of the
children. He is blatantly racist.

THEMES
Racism
This theme is apparent when Berry was being considered for
employment at the Home. Mrs. Osborn was concerned about
where Berry would sleep, implying that he could not sleep with the
white servants because he was considered to be beneath them.
His salary was also cut due to his race, and he was overworked,
with no discussions of days off, ‘everybody was imposing on him
in that taken-for-granted way white folks do with Negro help.’
(Hughes, 162). Even more importantly, when the unfortunate
accident occurred with the child, there was no attempt at
discerning what led to the incident, but blame was laid on the
obvious person – Berry. As a result, he was relieved of his job in a
hail of racist slurs.
Oppression

The theme of oppression is expressed repetitively throughout this


story. White workers and superiors kept expecting Milberry to do
more and more. Milberry’s response to these requests was a
quiet acceptance without bitterness because he was happy and
thankful enough to have this job and food. In the story Milberry
found happiness in helping the crippled children at play during his
brief rest period. At first the nurses were hesitant whether they
should allow it or not. At the end of the story the nurses had
changed their mind frame about Berry and would come looking for
and demanding his immediate help.
In his typical nature in responding to and accepting their demand
he unknowingly caused his own demise. While Berry was helping
a boy in a wheelchair down the stairs, due to no fault of Berry’s
own doing, the boy fell out of the chair onto the grass and the
wheelchair onto the walk. In the fall the boy was not hurt but the
wheelchair’s back was snapped off. In this scene Langston
Hughes uses the wheelchair as a symbol of Milberry’s undoing.
The wheelchair’s falling represents Berry’s falling from the grace
of the white people’s acceptance. The snapped back of the
wheelchair foreshadows Berry’s immediate termination of
employment. Even though it was the white nurses responsibility
and job they quickly and gladly placed all the blame for the
accident upon Berry. This truly exemplifies the use of oppression
of white people over blacks.

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