The Ascent By Ron Rash: Summary

In Ron Rash’s short story “The Ascent” a boy named Jared goes through a complicated home life. It was written in 2009 during the spring. Jared is being neglected by his parents, who are drug addicts, and that’s part of the problem. Jared is great and never takes anything for granted. The theme of “The Ascent” is don’t take anything for granted because you never know what can happen to you and it can be all gone. Ron Rash uses various symbols such as jewelry, red pipe, and airplane to represent the overwhelming difficulties in Jared’s life. These objects serve the to emphasize how the drug addiction of Jared’s parents profoundly affected him, pushing him towards escapism. At the beginning of “The Ascent” Jared was on an adventure which led to
Jared visits the plane multiple times after the first time he takes something with him, “He took the ring off the women’s finger and placed it in his jean pocket (Rash 3). Jared had to do what he had to do due to his parents being drug addicts and only spending money on cocaine because they needed it. Towards the end of the story Jared is fed up with all the neglect and leaves for a third time and never comes back. Jared fixes the plane up and escapes from reality, “After a while he began to shiver but after a longer while he was no longer cold (Rash 7). Jared has left all the hatred and disprovenness of his parents behind. All to say watch what you do as parents because you might think your kids aren’t watching, but we are always watching. Another problem Jared faced at home was poverty. He had holes in his house where the refrigerator and the microwave were supposed to be because they needed money to get their drugs. This wasn’t the only hole in the house Jared has a big one in him because he is always being neglected or picked on and his parents are never there to support him and be real parents. They are only happy or praise him when he brings something home to get