Speckled Trout critical analysis

In “Speckled Trout” Ron Rash, the writer of the story, uses the characters, the setting, the plot, and symbolism to show the theme of his short story. Ron Rash as born In Chester, South Carolina, in 1953. He grew up in a small town in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. He graduated from Gardner-Webb University and Clemson university. He is an American poet, short story writer, and novelist.

He has won several awards for his works. The main character of “Speckled Trout” Is Lanky. He Is a sixteen year old boy who has a Job at a place called Pay-Lo.

For extra money he goes out and catches fish to sell to a man named Old Man Jenkins. Lanky Is also very greedy. He Is doesn’t think about any consequences, and pays no attention to any warnings; which Is Just as a typical teenager would act.

Lanky father tries to be a good parent by trying to give Lanky warnings to help him stay out of trouble, but again Lanky doesn’t listen to warnings. One of Llano’s friends In named Travis. He Is a pot head, so he has the connections to help Lanky sell his marl]nana plants. Travis Introduces Lanky to Leonard.

He is the local drug dealer of the small town that they live in. Leonard is known for being a really tough guy.

Leonard is also a smart guy; he went to law school for a few months, but he got kicked out for smoking weed. The Tommy’s are the ones growing the marijuana plants. They live on a lot of land near Canny Creek The setting of this short story takes place in a small town in North Carolina near the French Broad River. It never specifically said exactly what year it was, but based on suggestions one could make an educated guess that it was in modern times.

It also never said which time of the year it was. Ron Rash also gave hints that in was the fall since it was harvesting season for the marijuana plants.

The plot of “Speckled Trout” starts out as Lanky driving his dad’s truck to Canny Creek to go fishing. Everything he was catching wasn’t good enough to sell so he went up river where nobody else fished. As he was going up river he came up on a “no trespassing” sign, but he ignored it and kept going. He then stopped to fish, and finally caught some fish good enough to sell. He was now catching speckled trout.

While he was fishing he found marijuana plants planted in rows. Lanky thought he could take come plants to sell to make some extra money. He cut down five plants and drug them back to his car. Lanky went and showed the plants to his friend Travis. Travis is a pot head, so he knew who Lanky could sell the marijuana to. Travis to Lanky to a guy named Leonard.

Leonard bought the plants from Lanky. After Lanky went back to take more plants, he went back to Leonard. He bought that plants from Lanky again, but warned Lanky to not go back where he got the marijuana.

He Ignored Leonard and went back anyways. When he went back to get more marijuana he got caught In a bear trap that was set by the Tommy’s.

This story has very significant symbolism. Lanky Is very self-centered and only cares about himself. He gets so carried away with stealing the marijuana plants, and he keeps going back for more. Lanky goes back to steal the plants three different times. In comparison to the speckled trout, It Is known for biting at the bait until It gets hooked, which is exactly what happened to Lanky.

He kept biting at the bait (the There is also symbolism in which Lanky was talking about how you can fish out all the speckled trout in a pond. That is symbolic because eventually all the people like Lanky are going to die out. The symbolism in this story is that Lanky is the speckled trout. That is the reason the title is such a great fit for this story. The theme of the “Speckled Trout” is to show how teenagers act and how it can be ad. Most teenagers are always getting into trouble because they think nothing will ever happen to them.

Lanky always ignored any warning he got, which ended up hurting him. If he listen to his dad, Leonard, and even the sign, it would have saved him. The story of “Speckled Trout” shows how such a simple story has great meaning with significant symbolism. If someone takes some time to listen to the warnings they get in life, it will save them, and also might save them some time to fix the problems they made. Ron Rash is saying to not be a Lanky, and to not be a speckled trout.