Setting

Time setting

The short story “Sweet Potato Pie” by Eugenia Collier was published in 1972.  The exact time in which the story is set is unclear. Buddy grew up in a sharecropping family, meaning that he was a child before the practice of sharecropping died out in the 1940s. He also went to war as a young adult and pursued a college education through the GI Bill (p. 7, ll. 3-4). The original GI Bill was adopted in 1944, so the war he is referring to is probably World War II. At the time when he recalls the events, Buddy is a middle-aged man - “a thickening waistline and thinning hair” (p. 7, l. 7). This suggests that more than 20 years have gone by since the war, thus setting the action in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

The particular time setting is one spring (p. 9, l. 16) evening when the narrator recalls events from his life. Through a series of flashbacks, he describes events that take place in a few different time settings. The narrator includes memories from his childhood: “I could not have been more than five—one frigid day Pa, huddled on a rickety stool before the coal stove, took me on his knee and studied me gravely”. (p. 6, ll. 8-9). He also describes events from his life as a young adult, such as when he graduated from high school (p. 6, ll. 27-35) and went to war (p. 7, ll. 3-4). The narrator also mentions recent events that lead up to him meeting Charley: “I didn’t tell Charley I ...