Manipulation In Ashes By Susan Beth Pfeffer

A Story About Manipulation The short story written by Susan Beth Pfeffer known as “Ashes” has the father of a girl named Ashes is complimenting her constantly and is ridiculed by his wife. Then he takes Ashes out to a new diner while acting strange. He then talks about how he needs two hundred dollars and he’ll be set. When Ashes asks if she can help, he says she can steal money from her mom’s teapot. Meanwhile, he continues to compliment her. “Ashes” shows how manipulation can make anyone do anything if done correctly, even if it is horrible. “Ashes” shows manipulation by showing a father manipulating his daughter into stealing money from her mom. This is shown by how the father seems to be trying to get her on his side by complimenting her and taking her to dinner. He could be easily be faking love for her at this point and be planning to never pay them back after getting the money. “Can I help?’ I asked. Dad smiled like I’d offered him the key to the mint.” …show more content…
Ashes's father might be trying to buy drugs or he could be planning to use the money in order to leave town. He is most likely to never pay them back after he gets the money. “You know how those guys are. They get itchy when you owe them money.”This demonstrates how Ashes's father could be dealing with a loan shark, or could owe someone money for drugs. He could plan to skip town using the money to escape the loan. All of the reasons above show how the short story “Ashes” by Susan Beth Pfeffer shows manipulation. The three reasons being that Ashes's father used manipulation by trying to get Ashes on his side, using his natural trust as her father against her, and trying to use the money for something bad. Ashes doesn’t realize that she is being manipulated until she is about to steal the money. Overall, all of the evidence shown above proves that “Ashes” shows