8.  Innocence/Exposure – In A Painted House Luke starts out fairly innocent. He is a seven year-old with no big worries in his life besides picking cotton. However, throughout the story he is exposed to several things that ruin his innocence. He sees fighting, killing, a baby being born, and a girl’s naked body all in a short period of time. Luke is practically forced to drop the innocence he once had and mature within the time period of the story.

Peace/Violence- At one point in the story, everyone on the farm participates in a baseball game. This means the Chandlers, the Spruills, and the Mexicans all participated. It was a very peaceful and fun atmosphere, with every person analyzing who could play baseball and who couldn’t. There was laughter and smiling and the game was taken lightly. There was no serious cruelty, until Hank stepped up the the mound. He pitched the ball and hit cowboy straight in the ribs, on purpose Things became violent then. Hank began to run at Cowboy and Cowboy pulled out a switch blade, threatening Hank. Of course, Hank stopped once he saw the knife and then Luke’s father interfered and broke up the fight. Just like that, things went from peaceful to violent.

Honesty/Deceit- Throughout the story, Luke is either being honest or deceitful. He has been told so many secrets and doesn’t want to let them out. His mother tells him it is wrong to lie to his parents, but he doesn’t want to tell his parents everything he knows. When Hank kills the Sisco boy and Luke is questioned as a witness, he lies in order to keep Hank out of trouble, in fear that Hank would hurt him. He is deceitful when he goes with Tally to watch Libby Latcher give birth, although he does eventually tell his mother the truth. When he sees Cowboy kill Hank, he keeps quiet and allows his family to believe he was sleepwalking that night. He eventually is honest and tells his Pappy what had happened.

Hate/Love- Luke looks up to Tally Spruill. He thinks she is beautiful and would likely do anything for her. He shows a lot of love for Tally, but he also displays hate for her at time. When Tally runs away with Cowboy, Luke doesn’t understand why. He gets furious with Tally and fills with hate towards her, because she just left him. He also shows hate towards Tally when she drags him out to the Latchers and they take forever to go back home. He begins to hate her when she does things that he deems unacceptable. It’s like a seesaw, one day he may hate her but the next day he’ll love her again.

Tradition/Unknown- There is a lot of tradition in this novel. Going to church every Sunday, listening to baseball on the porch during the evening, going to town on Saturday, and picking cotton during the summer/fall then going back to school are all examples of tradition for the Chandlers. It plays a big part in the novel. However, these traditions end when the Chandlers decide to move up North. They are going to a place that is unknown and new to them, which is scary. They don’t really know what to expect from the North because its unknown territory to them. While the South holds all their traditions, the North holds many unknown things that they will experience once they arrive.