A Taste of Blackberries

As the protagonist of A Taste of Blackberries, the narrator tells the events surrounding Jamie’s death from his perspective. The youngest in his family, he has an older brother who is married and an older sister who is away at college. He lives at home with his parents, across the street from his best friend, Jamie. He’s less daring and competitive compared to Jamie and tends to isolate himself in his grief. The book doesn’t give much personal information about the narrator, which leaves him as more of a clean slate for children to project themselves onto. Each of these aspects of the narrator contributes to the story’s themes of a community’s response to a death and a child’s perspective on death.

The narrator is more cautious in life than Jamie is. When Jamie hops the fence to steal apples, the narrator worries about what to do if Jamie gets shot: “Should I climb the fence and help him? How could I get him back over the fence?” (7). He ultimately finds the courage to go after Jamie, and the two escape without being harmed. The narrator is clearly old enough to understand the concept of danger, and death is something that is a possibility, but what happens after is always more abstract and uncertain.