SOURCE: Snipes, Katherine. “The Dream Sea of Ideas: Prose Period, 1944-1950.” In Robert Penn Warren, pp. 61-5. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1983.

In the following excerpt, Snipes maintains that “Blackberry Winter” contains many autobiographical elements and effectively captures childhood experiences.

The best known and most often anthologized of the stories [in The Circus in the Attic] is “Blackberry Winter,” which has many autobiographical elements. Like so much of Warren's poetry involving childhood experience, it captures the way in which children become aware of the suffering and disillusionment associated with adult life. It is a story of the passage from the naïve paradise of expectation into the blemished reality of adults. This theme is subtly suggested from the very first, when the nine-year-old boy is in a contest of wills with his mother about whether he should go outside barefoot. The fact that it is June is sufficient reason...