44 pages • 1 hour read
Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Ronald Cotton, Erin TorneoPicking Cotton: Our Memoir Of Injustice And Redemption
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Picking Cotton
Content warning: The guide contains discussions of rape, sexual assault, and racism that appear in the source text.
Given the themes of racism and of a Black man who is wronged by both the Southern justice system and a white person’s accusation, the word “cotton” has connotations of slavery. Enslaved Black people were used, abused, and robbed of their freedom by white enslavers, often forced to pick cotton, a mainstay of Southern industry in the Antebellum era. When Jennifer picks Ronald Cotton out of the lineup, she also takes away his freedom and places him in horrible circumstances that he cannot change, reflecting Racism and Unjust Incarceration. At the end of the book, when she says “Thank God I picked you” (281) and he agrees, it is an inversion of this symbol, framing her choosing of him as the act that brought them into each other’s lives.
Animals
While Ronald is incarcerated, he is committed to remaining peaceful and free most of the time. This is often framed as his reluctance to become another animal. The inmates are kept in cages like animals, and he believes this is one of the things that leads them to begin behaving like beasts. During the brief time when he has Judy the kitten, it is clear that even the kitten has more freedom than he does. Racist cops like Sullivan also make a point of demonstrating that they consider Black men little better than animals. Ronald is able to maintain his humanity, even while finding himself in danger in prison. His compassion for Jennifer after his release stands in stark comparison to the reactionary violence and aggression of prison.
Ronald’s Song
When Ronald is convicted of Mary Reynolds’s rape, he accepts the opportunity to speak on his own behalf. He sings a song that he wrote in prison. It is a mixture of blues and gospel themes, and he sings of bewilderment at his situation, hope for the future, and faith in God. When he sings it in the courtroom, Jennifer is repulsed. Later, she will hear him singing in the car on the way to the Wake Forest rally and remember that song from long ago. He has a lovely voice and she is grateful that he never lost the ability to sing. Music is described in the book as an attempt to express something inexpressible, giving extra poignancy to Ronald’s decision to sing in his own defense.
