Rivera’s “The Harvest” is a brief story, covering in some editions no more than three pages. However, springing up from this spare narrative are the archetypal themes of initiation and search, and one archetypal character, that of the Wise Old Man. These structural patterns are archetypal in the sense that they recur in many different…
Tag: Tomas Rivera
The Harvest by Tomas Rivera: Setting
Chicano Migrant Workers Migrant workers are those who are employed on a temporary, often seasonal basis and who come from a community, state, or nation other than where they are temporarily employed. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the majority of migrant farm workers in the United States were recent immigrants from Asia or…
The Harvest by Tomas Rivera: Literary Devices
Structure In his introduction to “The Harvest,” Julian Olivares quotes from an unpublished manuscript in which Rivera commented on the construction of a short story: “The conflict or problem of each story is what interests us as a story. The more intriguing the conflict, the more the story will interest the reader.” This, says Rivera,…
The Harvest by Tomas Rivera: Themes
Materialism The young boys who speculate about Don Trine have a limited, materialistic vision of life. Although they work on the land, they have no real connection to it. This may be understandable since they are migrant workers often on the move, but it is clear that they can conceive value only in terms of…
The Harvest by Tomas Rivera: Summary
“The Harvest” is divided into seven short sections. It is set somewhere in the Midwest at the end of September and the beginning of October. The unnamed narrator, a migrant farm worker, thinks this is the best time of year because the work is nearly over and he and his fellow workers will soon be…