Review: The Ascent by Ron Rash

Children who are neglected tend to use their imaginations as a way of escape. In his story, “The Ascent”, Ron Rash is essentially concerned with illusion, reality and a young boy’s desire for a better life. This is illustrated by the protagonist’s dreams of winning a classmate’s affection, his struggle with his parents and his discovery of a lost plane. The author portrays Jared as a young boy whose treatment for escapism is illusion. The author hints what Jared is avoiding to give an idea of the reason why the boy is in the woods on a cold winter day. “… Better to be outside on a cold day than in the house where everything, the rickety chair and sagging couch, the gaps where the TV and microwave had been, felt sad.” He detests the shabbiness of his home. As Jared made his way through the woods, he imagines he is explaining the animal tracks to Lyndee Starnes, the girl who sits in front of him in his fifth grade homeroom, and successfully defending them from a bear attack with a pocketknife. Protecting Lyndee serves as a way of changing her perception that “he and his clothes smelled bad.” It is not long before Jared finds the plane where he sits quietly in the backseat for a couple of hours without realizing instead of reporting his discovery to the authorities. As he exits, he takes the ring off the finger of the corpse of the woman and places it in his jean pocket. His thought was only that he would give it to Lyndee in school and she would finally like him and it would be for real. This sets off the means to which Jared escapes from his reality.
Rash goes on illustrate what Jared is trying to elude from, the struggle with his parents. He uses the weather to transition from Jared’s imaginations to this present reality. As the sun goes down, Jared has to go back home in order not to lose his tracks back home. His reality is introduced when he opens to front door to the living room. “… The small red glass pipe was on the coffee table, an empty baggie beside it.