Have you ever had a loss so devastating that it seems like everything, even hopes, were taken from you? Would you succumb to depression? Would you give up and run away? There are not many people experienced such a loss, but that is what happens to Martha in “A field of Wheat” - a short story written by Sinclair Ross and originally published in 1935. It is story about a woman, Martha, struggling with her marriage life and relationship with her husband John, finds a new promise in the new and the best crop of wheat John grew. She hopes with the profit from selling the wheat, their financial hardship will be lessen, they can pay more attentions to themselves and renew their love and marriage. But everything changes when the hailstorm comes, damages…show more content… Setting in a farming environment during the Great Depression, like everyone and everything else, Martha and her family is struggling to survive despite the poverty. Surprisingly, the mood of the story in the beginning is light and full of hopefulness with words like “shimmer” (page 97), “beautiful” and “young” (page 98). However, as the story progresses, it changes into heavy, hopelessness and depression with the words “blackness” (page 100-101), “crushed” (page 102), “waste” (page 104), “broken” (page 102, 104-105). Even though the story is told from third person point of view, everything revolves around Martha perspective and, thus, the mood change here is undoubtedly to present the change inside Martha’s emotion: from feeling hopeful with the crop to feeling defeated by the hail. By changing how he expresses the nature around Martha, Ross successfully conveys to the readers how Martha actually feels about her life and circumstance without having to directly write about…show more content… And that makes the wheat clearly emphasised as one of the most important elements in the whole story. The wheat here, and especially this crop of wheat, is not simply only wheat but it is symbolized for Martha, for farmers during the depression time and for their only hopes. The wheat is described as such it “was struggle” with “poor, taunted, driven [struggles]”, it “was invincible” but “died tantalizingly sometimes, slowly” (page 98). Given the setting of Canadian prairie in the years of 1930s, the farmers are all struggling to survive and to cope with the crashed economy of the Great Depression. They still move forward despite meeting many hardships in hope for a better future. But, having to depend on the weather, some will die if they are unlucky and do not have enough food. The farmers are just like how the wheat is portrayed here - and apparently it is not a coincidence. By describing the wheat - one prominent aspect of Canadian landscape in Saskatchewan - Ross indirectly describes how Martha, as well as other farmers, both physically and psychologically struggles with their