A Painted House Character Analysis

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In John Grisham's A Painted House, the main character Luke Chandler is introduced as a shy, hard-working, honest, and God-fearing young boy. Throughout the novel he we see him grow as he makes his own choices and becomes more independent. As problems begin to unfold with the Spruills and Hank killing the Sisco boy, Luke ends up having to lie to protect Hank and prevent the Spruills from leaving the farm. This is where Luke realizes how easy it is to lie. He begins to question how 'bad' it really is to tell lies and eventually by the end of the novel, finds it almost completely acceptable. Lying and dishonesty doesn't go unpunished however, as Luke soon finds out. The repercussions of Luke's dishonesty include having Cowboy escape with Tally, getting Hank killed and having problems arise within his family. Luke's dishonesty can be directly linked to untrustworthiness and distanced relationships within his family; the more Luke lies, the more Luke finds lying acceptable. One of the…show more content…
Pappy was suspicious of Luke's absences as of late so coupled with this, he was not happy. Pappy had a special kind of untrustworthiness towards Luke. At first, he didn't trust him because he was only seven and was therefore irresponsible, but now he doesn't trust him because he knows that Luke has lied to him more than once and doesn't share important information with him. Pappy and Luke's relationship was only hurt further by the fact that Luke had lied to him. If Luke had just told the truth in the beginning, everything could have been worked out . Luke thinks that since he is so young, he can get away with a lot of things, and he doesn't think of how his lying could hurt him and his
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