First Day of Winter by Breece D’J Pancake

First Day of Winter by Breece D’J Pancake

Breece D’J Pancake’s First Day of Winter revolves around Hollis, a farm boy, who struggles to overcome the ever-present challenges in the rural environment. The story begins by Hollis lamenting about the tomb-like house his brother Jake had built for him. He also recalls the completed farm activities that results in work done for figures in bank to clear debts. In the fierce farm environment, Hollis lives with ailing parents, “mother giggling, her mind half-gone from blood too thick in her veins; his father, now blind and coughing.” In the end, Pancake crafts Hollis’ final image that Hollis finally succumbed to his fate. Therefore, Hollis had to accept or succumb to the fate of poverty and struggles in the farm without any option left for survival.

Hollis’ inner conflicts revolve around the level of poverty that prohibits access to basic needs and proper health care for parents. As the story begins, Hollis lives in a house comparable to a tomb, his previous produce from the farm used to clear bank debts, parents sick, and the farm is failing. Hollis compares his life situation at the farm to a body buried in a tomb, without solutions for escape. Pancake wrote that “Hollis sat by the window all night, …. Looking for some way out of the tomb, Jake had built for him.” The beginning of the story reveals the fierce poverty and life that acts as a cage prohibit Hollis or his parents from having the basic needs of life.

Despite the poverty and harsh life on the farm, the industrious Hollis had no opportunity to make a living. He is industries since he already worked on the farm and used the vast harvest to clear bank debts. he is also good at hunting meals for the entire family, but these opportunities have faded. He laments that his hard work was “work done for figures in the bank, for debts, and now corn stubble leaned in the fields among stuck of fodder laced with frost.” Hollis had also “asked Jake to take them (parents) into personage…; the farm was failing.” Therefore, Hollis has lost major opportunities or sources of income and now desperate to rescue his parents through personage.

Since his brother Jake would not help the family despite his progress, Hollis finally admits or succumbs to his fate, just like the parents. While hunting, Hollis was exhausted, and he thought about the state home, Jake wanted the parents in. But quickly Hollis remembers that at the state homes, “they starve them… they mistreat them, and in the end, they smother them.” The statement implied that Hollis’ option of state home was even worse than the farm, and he even contemplated killing the parents to save them from more suffering. However, Jake was living well with happy family “lookee at the pretty church and the children… His face was squinted with a smile. So, since Hollis had no options left, he succumbed to fate, “he went back to the house and in the living room stretched out on the couch…he lay that way in the graying light and slept.”

In conclusion, Hollis accepted or succumbed to the fate of poverty as he lacked any viable option for betterment. His story begins at a farm with a small house comparable to a tomb, his hard work in the farm only used to clear bank debts, and now the farm is failing as the hardest season hit. Hollis even tried hunting or repairing a car to go to the city, but all in vain. His brother, Jake, has abandoned them and cannot even offer him a loan. Thus, he succumbs to the fate of poverty and joins his parents in waiting for death.