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The Narrator
Mr. Wills is the best and most intimidating farmer in the community. While he can grow anything on his land, his method of farming involves yelling and “fight[ing] the earth.” Combined with his large physical stature, this behavior makes him seem terrifying to his neighborhood, including the narrator and his two best friends. The summer the story takes place, Mr. Wills is growing the biggest watermelon the community has ever seen, and he is very protective of it, standing guard over it every night with his shotgun instead of letting teenage boys raid his watermelon patch as the other farmers do. The narrator’s parents criticize him for watching over the watermelon more than his own wife, who is sick and rarely ever leaves the house. The community also gossips that he fills his shotgun with buckshot, which could kill, rather than the salt pellets farmers usually use. However, after the narrator steals Mr. Wills’s watermelon, Mr. Wills reveals the reason for his vigilance over the melon: he had planned to give it to Mrs. Wills, who in turn had planned to give it out to the entire neighborhood in an effort to make friends. In a devastated rage, Mr. Wills destroys the entire watermelon patch. But the next morning, when the narrator apologizes for stealing the watermelon, Mr. Wills is no longer angry. Instead, he expresses how hurt he is by the narrator’s actions, and he admits his own shame at having destroyed the rest of the watermelons the night before. He then asks the narrator to help out on his farm next year, since the narrator’s own father does not farm. In this way, Mr. Wills becomes a role model for the narrator by the end of the story, showing the importance of not judging people too quickly.
Mr. Wills Quotes in The Taste of Watermelon
The The Taste of Watermelon quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Wills or refer to Mr. Wills. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Taste of Watermelon
Quotes
Mr. Wills was the best farmer in the community. My father said he could drive a stick into the ground and grow a tree out of it. But it wasn’t an easy thing with him. Mr. Wills fought the earth when he worked it. When he plowed his fields, you could hear him yelling for a mile. It was as though he dared the earth not to yield him its sustenance.
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It surged up out of me – not the idea of making my name for years to come by such a deed, but the feeling that there was a rightness in defying the world and Mr. Wills.
Mixed up with it all there came into my mouth the taste of watermelon. I could taste the sweet red juices oozing over my tongue, I could feel the delicate threaded redness of the heart as I squeezed the juices out.
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Mr. Wills was tearing up and down the melon patch, and I was puzzled by his actions. Then I saw; he was destroying every melon in the patch. He was breaking them open with his feet, silent now, concentrating on his frantic destruction. I was horrified by the awful sight, and my stomach moved sickly.
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Watermelon raiding was a game, a ritual of defiance and rebellion by young males. I could remember my own father saying, “No melon tastes as sweet as a stolen melon,” and my mother laughing and agreeing.
But stealing this great seed melon from a man like Mr. Wills lay outside the safe magic of the tacit understanding between man and boy.
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“I’m about as ashamed of myself last night as you are of yourself,” Mr. Wills said. He frowned at me with his heavy brows. “You ruined the half of it, and I ruined the other. We’re both to blame, boy. Both to blame.”
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He broke the shell in his strong fingers and poured the white salt out into his palm.
“You see?” he said.
“Yes, Sir,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I see.”
I went on, then, and the next year started that very day.
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Mr. Wills Quotes in The Taste of Watermelon
The The Taste of Watermelon quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Wills or refer to Mr. Wills. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Taste of Watermelon
Quotes
Mr. Wills was the best farmer in the community. My father said he could drive a stick into the ground and grow a tree out of it. But it wasn’t an easy thing with him. Mr. Wills fought the earth when he worked it. When he plowed his fields, you could hear him yelling for a mile. It was as though he dared the earth not to yield him its sustenance.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
It surged up out of me – not the idea of making my name for years to come by such a deed, but the feeling that there was a rightness in defying the world and Mr. Wills.
Mixed up with it all there came into my mouth the taste of watermelon. I could taste the sweet red juices oozing over my tongue, I could feel the delicate threaded redness of the heart as I squeezed the juices out.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Mr. Wills was tearing up and down the melon patch, and I was puzzled by his actions. Then I saw; he was destroying every melon in the patch. He was breaking them open with his feet, silent now, concentrating on his frantic destruction. I was horrified by the awful sight, and my stomach moved sickly.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Watermelon raiding was a game, a ritual of defiance and rebellion by young males. I could remember my own father saying, “No melon tastes as sweet as a stolen melon,” and my mother laughing and agreeing.
But stealing this great seed melon from a man like Mr. Wills lay outside the safe magic of the tacit understanding between man and boy.
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“I’m about as ashamed of myself last night as you are of yourself,” Mr. Wills said. He frowned at me with his heavy brows. “You ruined the half of it, and I ruined the other. We’re both to blame, boy. Both to blame.”
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He broke the shell in his strong fingers and poured the white salt out into his palm.
“You see?” he said.
“Yes, Sir,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I see.”
I went on, then, and the next year started that very day.
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