The Rake: A Few Scenes from My Childhood

When I first read the title of this story, I was thought "I have to read a story about doing yard work?" As I read the story I did not understand how the title related to the story. By the time I read the part about the incident with the rake, I realized that this title was brilliant! The rake incident pretty much summarized every symbol in this story. This scene was most important to me because I can relate to it.
When I was younger, I had a similar situation to this with my little brother. He kept bothering me by jumping up and down on my bed as well as me. I constantly asked him to stop, but he wouldn't. So i got so upset with him that I power bombed (wrestling move..ha) him on the bed, and I knocked his two front teeth back about an inch. He quickly ran into the kitchen with blood dripping everywhere to my dad who was sitting at the round kitchen table. My dad got very upset and angrily asked what happened. Soon after, he took my brother to the hospital to get the problem solved.
The rake scene in this story symbolizes hurt most of all. The sister was always hurt by her step-father whenever her brother was away. It also symbolizes pain. This is not just physically but mentally as well. The children were abused almost everyday of the their lives while living there. Their mother, who was abused by her father was no help to them at all. This probably hurt them more than the fact that they were abused by their stepfather.