These Feel Feel Feeling

In Raymond Barrio’s “The Plum Plum Pickers,” Barrio uses the idea of being a human by using names and religion to symbolize the humane ways of life. The author uses contradictions within his sentences to show how the characters in the story are mechanical in some ways but are still human when it comes to feelings and emotions. Barrio also uses the setting to describe these emotions more throughout the story. The main character at first feels trap, then relaxes only to them feel imprisoned again, all until he sets himself free by removing himself from his own mechanical ways.
In the story, the main characters name is Manuel which symbolically relates to the manual labor he mechanically does every single day of his life. Also the word man can be found within his name which relates to the theme of being human that Borrio stresses throughout the story. The character Roberto Morales is symbolic also because Roberto connects to the idea of being a robber and Morales means morals less. The story also uses a lot of religion references which relates to being human because in most religions God provides life to earth. “smiling in their cool filtered offices, puffing their elegant thin cigars, washed their clean blond bloodless dirtless hands of the whole matter. (par.8)” Connecting to religion is this idea of Pontius Pilot who also can be mistaken for Roberto robs Jesus, or Manuel of his life. Roberto takes away his ability to live life because every day he makes Manuel work picking apricots. The author connects this to the theme of what it means to have a life and be human.
The author uses paragraph two to three to show how once Manuel begins to feel human his machine ways take over and robs him of his life. The author uses words such lines such as “Sandy dreams. Cool nights. Cold drinks. Soft guitar music with Lupe sitting beside him. (par.3)” to describe the little things humans appreciate in life. However he soon contradicts himself by switching back to mechanical ways of life, “Tiredness drained his spirit of will. Exhaustion drained his mind. (par.3).”
The author theme in “The Plum Plum Pickers” is that being human means more then just working in fields all day for a living. At the end of the story, Manuel reclaims his humanity by taking down the machines that corrupted him for too long. “Men are built to experience a certain sense of honor and pride. Or else they are dead before they die. (par.24)” The author is saying that if men work all their lives like machines they might as well be dead because they miss out on that feeling of pride and honor that every man should experience while he is alive. This connects to Barrio’s theme of what it means to be human, it’s the feelings that we cherish that keep us alive.
Barrio keeps the theme going throughout the entire story until the very last sentence. He uses his characters to demonstrate to the reader that if one works all their life trying achieve something mechanically then that one loses their life. If humans were meant to be machines they would be however humans are giving the ability to feel which Manuel finally learns at the end of the story.

A Humument pg.179

On page 179 of Tom Phillip’s, A Humument, Phillip suggests that when two lovers come together it’s only a natural way of life to explore one other, body and mind and to succumb to those feelings of passion. Phillip uses circular shapes to represent the biology aspects of these passionate feelings but also his words help move the story together and keep this idea fresh in the viewers mind. The tale he sets up for the viewer is that this is a painting between two lovers, past lovers who come with good and bad feelings towards each other. When these are brought together their story of letting go and growing onto one another is nothing but a way of life and Phillip highly states this.

Phillip starts with the word “gent” at the very top of the page. He uses a man’s point of view through the entire painting which is effective because it’s a mans take on love and also how he reacts to heated feelings. One of the first things noticeable in the painting is the deep red and white circular figures in the middle of the piece. This gives off the idea of sexual feelings because it symbolizes the sperm which is apart of all men. “Her arm on his knee explored,” Phillip uses his words to convey the idea of a sexual nature when lovers reunite, or are just together. The dark red uses in between the off white symbolizes the idea of love and how these actions of passion should be shared only when there is love and nothing else. At the time though the red could symbolize the opposite of that, the red means heat and passion, mostly sin in the eyes of the white, God.

Phillip places this large awkward circle in the middle of the painting with the words, “former lovers” in between. This represents the characters in the artwork. However it also states, “started in horror” which is ironic. Horror would never be used to describe lovers, but then again former lovers do come with pasts. Perhaps Phillips tries to explain this to the audience, for us to understand how the story starts. These lovers are in horror because they should not be feeling this way, this moment of wanting to rekindle all that was once before, but even then we can only hold ourselves back for so long until we just let go. The circle represents a women’s egg, which connects to a man’s sperm in this idea of a sexual nature throughout the entire artwork.

The colors purple and green are hard to understand and connect to the idea that the artwork represents. Since these colors are the background to the painting, perhaps Phillips uses them to symbolize the past relationship shared between the two lovers that are the main focus in the foreground. The idea of green can symbolize envy and jealousy but also growth and life which connects to the lovers because perhaps their past was filled with lots of negativity but now is replaced with the foreground idea of creating life and growing an attachment with one another and share this moment. The color purple requires more intense thought however. Red and blue are used to create purple, so connecting this like green Phillip uses the individual colors to create meaning for the background. The color red represents this idea of love, hence former lovers but also the color blue represents this peacefulness which is shown in the painting. When green, blue, and red come together they clash with one other but come together into a typical relationship shared between two people.

The color white is also highly symbolic to the painting. Brought up towards of the beginning, white was noted to be symbolic towards God. However Phillip expands his beliefs beyond that. Phillip uses white to surround the deep red and the purple circle in the middle of the foreground because all of the lover’s intentions are pure. Perhaps the lovers have finally come to the conclusion that they cannot let past mistakes ruin the moment they are about to share. Though they are in the midst of a sinful encounter they love one other which is nothing but pure and real. Phillip uses white to even out the darker shades throughout the painting, even out the bad with the good.

Overall Phillips point is that love leads to new things, whether it’s plain and pure or heated and sinful, love is just love. New lovers create moments that they will always remember even if they break apart in the end and seen in Phillips pg. 179 former lovers can do the same. Take what they know in the past and learn from it to create a better future. Phillip’s painting can be taken in either as a sexual reference or a reference to growing and becoming more then what one thought beforehand. Phillips is able to create this playing off the ideas of colors, shapes, and the symbols they represent to human beings. In this case the lovers are more then just egg Sand sperm, they are more human then ever which is shown throughout the artwork.