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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Taste of Watermelon, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age and Masculinity
Rushing to Judgment
Exclusion, Cruelty, and Belonging
Morality
Illicit Sexuality and Acceptable Romance
Summary
Analysis
The Narrator’s family has recently moved from town to a farming community. He has friends in the new place (Freddy Gray and J.D.), but he still feels like an outsider. This trio of boys are interested in Willadean, a girl their age who lives in the house next to the narrator. Willadean no longer plays children’s games, she is “tall and slender,” and she walks in a way that intrigues the boys. But they do not talk much to her because they are afraid of Willadean’s father, Mr. Wills, who is a big, terrifying man with fierce eyes.
Having just moved from a more urban location, the narrator does not feel that he belongs to the rural community yet. Clearly, he’s thinking about what it might take for him to belong. Additionally, the reference to Willadean’s changes in the past year alert the reader to the coming-of-age nature of the story. While Willadean appears mature, the narrator and his friends still act childishly, afraid to talk to Willadean because they are scared of her father. This shows that, as the story begins, they’re boys still, not yet men.
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Mr. Wills is the best farmer in the community, but he does not make it look easy. He “[fights] the earth” when he farms, yelling loudly. He is especially good at growing watermelons, a tricky crop that some men struggle to grow. He is very protective of his watermelon patch, which he plants in between his barn and the creek, and he has no notion of sharing his melons with the boys of the neighborhood.
The narrator thinks that Mr. Wills is quick to anger and potentially even violent, as his farming style is very physical and antagonistic. The fact that he doesn’t share his watermelons immediately paints him as possessive and potentially even selfish, setting up his alienation from the community.
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The rest of the farmers in the community expect to lose a certain portion of their watermelons to the regular pests: terrapins and neighborhood boys. It isn’t thought of as stealing for boys to “borrow a sample” of the crop, although if they are caught, the farmers might shoot them with salt pellets. You only break the rules of the game if you step on a lot of melons, destroying the farmer’s crop. But Mr. Wills “[doesn’t] think that way.”
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Mr. Wills is growing the biggest watermelon anyone has ever seen, right in the middle of his patch. Men travel miles to see it, although he won’t let them enter the patch. All the boys in the area daydream about stealing it, including the narrator, Freddy Gray, and J.D. But they don’t actually plan on doing it, not only because they are afraid of Mr. Wills’s anger, but also because Mr. Willis sits guarding the melon every night, looking out his hayloft window with his gun. He hopes to plant the seeds from the big watermelon next year so he can grow a field of giant watermelons. It seems like he “would rather you [steal] Willadean than his melon.”
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The narrator and his parents often watch Mr. Wills guarding his watermelon at night and gossip about it. His father thinks it is silly to guard it, because no one would think of stealing a man’s seed melon. His mother thinks Mr. Wills should be taking care of his wife instead of the melon. Mrs. Wills has been looking sick and pale all year, and she barely ever leaves the house. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Wills visits with anyone in the community.
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Around the time the watermelon should be ripe, there is a full moon, and the three boys decide to go swimming in the creek. The moon rises, illuminating everything in a light almost as bright as daylight but softer. The night makes the narrator feel like he could do anything. Freddy Gray says he would like to take Willadean out, and the others laugh at him but secretly agree: they are reaching an age where that kind of thing is starting to sound like fun. At that time, the narrator was both “part of the bunch” with J.D. and Freddy Gray, but also “left out of certain things.” In this case, he was left out because J.D. and Freddy were afraid that Willadean might like the narrator more than them because he was new to the area. They didn’t talk about that tension, but all three boys felt it.
The narrator tells his friends that the night is so bright he could read a newspaper. Then they reach the swimming hole and race to jump in the water. Freddy Gray jumps first. The water is cold, and it “strikes a chill” into them, but they warm themselves up with a water fight. Finally, all tired out, they sit on the bank and look up at the moon.
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Freddy Gray says no one would dare steal Mr. Wills’s watermelon on a bright night like this, and J.D. says that on his walk tonight, he saw Mr. Wills guarding the melon anyway, with his “shotgun loaded with double-ought buckshot.” The narrator is astounded: double-ought buckshot “would kill a man.” But his friends assure him that it’s true, Freddy Gray heard it from his father, who heard it from Mr. Wills.
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The thought of the buckshot in Mr. Wills’s gun bothers the narrator: who would kill someone over a watermelon? Freddy Gray wonders why the narrator is so angry, asking him half-jokingly if he was planning on stealing it. The narrator says that he actually was thinking of stealing it, surprising himself as much as his two friends. Even as an adult looking back on that night, the narrator doesn’t know why he said that. He remembers it coming from a mixture of origins—his desire for Willadean, his anger at Mr. Wills, and his feeling like an outsider with the two boys. He remembers feeling that “there was a rightness in defying the world and Mr. Wills.” Also, he could already taste the sweet juice of the watermelon in his mouth.
The narrator tells his friends he intends to steal the watermelon that very night. They protest, telling him the moon is too bright and he will surely get caught. But the narrator insists on doing it despite his fear, because “it is too late to stop... Besides, [he doesn’t] want to.” The narrator leads the way to the edge of Mr. Wills’s watermelon patch, where they hide behind willow trees and watch Mr. Wills sitting in the barn, holding his gun under the moonlight.
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The narrator enters the patch by crawling flat on his stomach, looking back once at his friends’ white faces watching from the willows. He sees a terrapin eating a small melon and wishes “he was equipped like a terrapin for the job, outside as well as inside.” At every move, the narrator expects Mr. Wills to see him, but the tall grass covers him. Finally, he reaches the enormous watermelon, which is even bigger than he imagined. He lies still for five minutes, wondering how he will carry the watermelon out and why he’s there in the first place. He decides that, more than “just bravado,” he is “proving something to [him]self—and to Mr. Wills and Willadean.”
He considers just carving his name into the watermelon but decides he needs to actually take it. So he breaks the stem. Mr. Wills yawns. The narrator shoves the melon back through the path in the grass he made crawling into the field. The melon is so heavy he can barely push it, and the dust he is creating makes him want to sneeze. He expects to be shot at any moment. But he reaches the edge of the field, feeling a hundred years older, and collapses. After a quick rest, he climbs back under the willows. His friends grab him and start to celebrate the victory, but the narrator urges them to continue on, since Mr. Wills could still catch them.
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The three boys carry the watermelon back to the swimming hole, almost dropping it three or four times because it’s so difficult to carry. At last, they reach the hole and put the melon down, panting. Excited, they decide to eat it before someone finds them with it. The narrator “penetrates” it with his pocket knife, which he thinks is more respectful than bashing it open with their fists, and the melon splits in half by itself. The narrator takes the first bite, closing his eyes as he enjoys the sweet, moist heart meat, still warm from the day’s sun. It tastes exactly as he imagined it would; it is the most delicious watermelon he has ever had. He “graciously” invites his two friends to “help [themselves]” to the melon.
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After eating all they can, the boys haven’t even consumed half of the melon. Realizing that they can’t share the watermelon with anyone else, they become depressed at all the wasted melon. The narrator says that he has to go home, and he begins to stomp on the leftover melon, destroying it. Freddy and J.D. watch him until he throws a chunk of melon at them, and then they join in the destruction, laughing. Looking around at the strewn rinds and seeds, they all agree that they couldn’t have done anything else. But the depression follows them home, and they say goodnight to each other quietly. The narrator doesn’t feel proud anymore, even though he knows the adventure has brought him closer to his friends.
When he gets home, his father asks him where he has been, and the narrator tells him he was swimming. The narrator looks over at Mr. Wills’s barn and sees Mr. Wills in the field under the moonlight. He watches as Mr. Wills reaches the spot where the watermelon should be, and unable to find it, he lets out a “strangled cry” that “chilled [the narrator] deep down...like the cry of a wild animal.” Mr. Wills throws his shotgun away from him and begins running up and down the field. At first, the narrator can’t figure out what he’s doing, and then he realizes that Mr. Wills is destroying every melon in the patch. The narrator feels sick to his stomach.
The narrator follows his father into the watermelon patch, passing Mrs. Wills and Willadean, who are huddled in the kitchen doorway. The narrator’s father asks Mr. Wills what is going on and Mr. Wills screams back, “they’ve stolen my seed melon.” The narrator’s father bravely grabs Mr. Wills with both arms, but Mr. Wills punches him and shoves him to the dirt. Mr. Wills then returns to his destruction, with his eyes full of fury. Attempting to stop Mr. Wills, the narrator’s father chases him, but each time he gets close, Mr. Wills bats him away. Finally, Mr. Wills stops in the spot where the big watermelon grew and looks around at the destroyed patch.
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Mr. Wills tells them that he had been planning to give the watermelon to his wife, who has been sick since the spring. He planned on saving the seeds to plant the “greatest melon crop in the world” next year. Every day, his wife would ask him if the giant melon was ripe yet. The narrator looks at the two women standing in the doorway and runs home, straight to his bedroom. All that night, he can’t sleep and watches the moon fall until it disappears, bringing a “welcome darkness.” He feels the shame of having committed such a crime “out of pride,” without regard for its meaning. He has heard many men reminiscing about stealing watermelon in their youth, but stealing Mr. Wills’s seed melon is something different.
When daylight arrives, he walks towards the swimming hole, where the wasted watermelon greets him, reminding him of Mr. Wills’s destructive rampage last night. He collects all the watermelon seeds he can find in a paper bag, crawling around on the ground for the last ones. When he returns home, his father asks him if he was afraid of Mr. Wills last night, and the narrator responds by asking his father to come over to Mr. Wills’s house with him immediately. His father suddenly understands and asks the narrator if he stole the seed melon. But instead of responding, the narrator tells him, with a slight tremble in his voice, that he is afraid Mr. Wills will shoot him if he goes alone. The narrator’s father agrees quietly, and they walk together over to the Wills’ house.
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Willadean opens the door and fetches Mr. Wills, who appears in the doorway looking tired from the night. He asks absentmindedly what the narrator wants. Full of fear, the narrator holds out the bag of seeds, telling him that they are from the seed melon. Mr. Wills asks if he stole the melon, and the narrator confesses. Instead of grabbing his shotgun, like the narrator expects, Mr. Wills leans down towards the narrator with gleaming eyes and asks him why he stole it. The narrator responds that he doesn’t know, and Mr. Wills reveals that his wife had planned to invite the whole neighborhood over to eat the melon together. Even more deeply ashamed, the narrator apologizes. He finally looks at Willadean, who is standing behind her father, but he can’t see any emotion in her eyes.
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Mr. Wills tells the narrator that he also feels ashamed of his actions last night, since they both ruined the melon crop together. The narrator can only respond with a thought he had in the early light of the morning: he offers to help Mr. Wills with next year’s melon crop. Mr. Wills looks at the narrator’s father and explains that he has no sons himself, and he needs a boy to help on the farm. Mr. Wills puts his hand on the narrator’s shoulder and says that even though they can’t do anything about this year, they’ll “grow next year together.”
Agreeing, the narrator looks again at Willadean, whose eyes are now smiling, and feels his heart beat in his chest. He blurts out that they don’t need the seed melon to get people to visit them; he can sit on the porch with Willadean anytime. The two men laugh at this, and although Willadean blushes, she doesn’t look angry. The narrator starts to turn around to go home, but realizes he has one last question for Mr. Wills. “Was there double-ought buckshot in that gun?” Mr. Wills picks up the gun and takes out a shell. Breaking it with his fingers, he pours white salt into his hand. The narrator remembers how “the next year started that very day.”
