Ashes by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Ashes by Susan Beth Pfeffer

            Parental rivalry often confuses young people about what they want. In the short story “Ashes,” by Susan Beth Pfeffer, the protagonist is tangled up in arduous battles with morality that spring from her relationship with her divorced parents. Ashes, the main character, is asked by her father to take money from her mother in order to settle his own financial difficulties. Ashes enjoys the constant compliments and promises from her father and finds her mothers realistic attitude unsatisfying. Ashes’ complicated relationships with her parents and the questionable favor her father asks of her cause Ashes to question which parent is worth choosing.

            In the story, Ashes’ father, while manipulative and irresponsible, is the light of her life. She describes him as “a rescuer,” and that he “could make everyone in the world smile.” Ashes generally loves her father, he’s everything that she wants in a parent, except reliable. Ashes’ father is “unexpectedly there, like a warm day in January.” Ashes’ father is portrayed as thoughtless, “when Dad forgot to pick me up at school, or didn’t have the money for the class trip, or got all his favorite kinds of Chinese and none of Mom’s and mine.” Of course, what Ashes wants is a fun, loving, superhero dad. The “rescuer.” Ashes loves this part of her dad so much that she sometimes overlooks his tendency to not always be there when she needs him. Another instance in the text when her father was shown to be unreliable is when he asks Ashes to take her mother's money and give the money to him. This illustrates his inability to think about consequences, he doesn’t consider the trouble Ashes could be in with her mother if he has her “borrow” that money. This behavior clearly indicates Ashes’ father’s irresponsibility. Her father is also incredibly manipulative. In the text, Ashes is constantly pelted with compliments that she doesn’t believe. Her father calls her a “one-in-a-million girl”, a name Ashes doesn’t believe she lives up to. Her father keeps complimenting her, and it makes him seem warm and loving. Her fathers purchase of loyalty by way of compliments comes into play when he asks Ashes to take her mother’s money from the teapot. When Ashes is about to steal or not steal the money with her father waiting outside, she says “I looked out the window and saw only ash grey sky, In the cold stillness of the night, I could hear my father’s car keening in the distance. ‘You’re one in a million,’ it cried.” This shows how she is still being manipulated by her father’s compliments in ways she can’t understand. Ashes yearns for a caring, emotional parent, one that will promise her the stars and dreams as her dad does. But what Ashes needs is a down to earth parent, a trait her father has been shown to lack.

            The behavior and parenting methods of Ashes’ mother are in stark contrast to that of Ashes’ father. Ashes’ mother is, while authoritative, not quite as obviously affectionate as her father. This can be exemplified in the text with Ashes depicting her mom as “the most practical person I know, always putting aside for a rainy day.”  Her mother never promises her anything she can’t follow through with, as opposed to her father, who is always making promises that, while loving, he can’t keep. Ashes is less satisfied with her mother, she feels that she is too prepared, not personal enough, that her father is warmer and friendlier because he constantly compliments her and makes promises he can’t keep. For example, in the text Ashes says, “Dad used to promise me the stars for a necklace, but like most of his promises, that one never quite happened.” However, her mother cares in a way more than her father. She’s the one who Ashes can rely on to get things done, to actually provide for her as opposed to just saying she will. This shows how Ashes is confusing what she wants and what she needs. As Ashes has shown us, while she craves the affection of her father, Ashes requires the reliability from of her mother.

            “Ashes” illustrates how thinking about people’s roles in our lives can be baffling. This is especially true for teenagers, whose feelings about people often cloud our ability to think clearly and critically about their positive and negative attributes. Often times we will overlook things about people and either take them for granted or put them on too high of a pedestal. But will she take the money or will she leave it? This decision, more so than the money, is about Ashes’ choosing sides. If she takes the money and betrays her mother, Ashes picks her father. If she leaves her mother's money and leaves her father in debt, she clearly favors her mother. From a literary standpoint, it makes sense for Ashes to choose her mother. If she chooses her father then she would be choosing the character that is the root of this conflict, not resolving the story. However, in real life it could go both ways. It all depends on how courageous Ashes is willing to be. Is she strong enough to go against her father? Is she not? This story will hopefully clear many kids judgment, and cause them to consider all the complicated facets of people in their lives.