Penny in the Dust by Ernest Buckler is a moving tale that sensitively navigates across the nuances of a father and son relationship. The story engages with the themes of childhood, memory, and filial affection.

Penny in the Dust | Summary 

Peter and his sister walk through the fields, the evening before their father’s funeral. They look back on the memories with their father and the little incidents of their childhood years. However, they realize they don’t have enough memories with him. They recall one of the incidents where Peter was lost and the entire family, including their father, rushed to look for him. However, Peter was sound asleep in his bed all the while. It was about a “shining new” “bright as gold” penny that the father had given to Peter. And, it was taken out by his father several times to examine the date on it, but it was not until Peter showed a sign that the gift was welcome, that the penny was given to him. He began to play with the penny by burying it deep in the sand and walking around with his eyes closed, returning to search for the hidden penny. With the excitement of discovering afresh “its shining edge”, he played with it repeatedly and ultimately lost the penny. 

After losing the new penny, he hid himself in the room, scared of his father and ashamed of losing the gift. It was the “childish visions” that Peter had built in his mind, where anything could be made to seem real, as he buried the penny and dug it up again. The next morning, his father started looking for the lost penny instead of leaving for the fieldwork. Peter and his father walked down the road together, searching for it. His father looked at him but did not ask which game he played with a penny in the dust. The father drew his fingers carefully through the dust, “like a harrow and not clawing it frantically into the heaps” as Peter had done. Immediately, his father found the penny. 

Later on, his father confronted him that he shouldn’t have hidden inside the room because his father wouldn’t have beaten him up for losing the penny. Peter told him the truth that he was burning the penny in the ground and digging it up, pretending to find treasure or gold. Through the hidden treasure, Peter would have bought his father a mowing machine, for him to complete his work early and go about town in the big automobile, which Peter imagined to have bought for his father. 

At this instance, Peter saw tears in his father’s eyes and his father put his arm around Peter. The father put the penny back into his pocket. Afterward, Peter found the penny again in the upper vest pocket of his father, still shining as if it was polished. And, Peter left it there. 

Penny in the Dust | Analysis 

‘Penny in the Dust’ written by Ernest Buckler, describes the relationship a son had with his father, who has passed away. Peter recollects the memories of his late father and is struck by the incident of the lost penny, which was given to him, as a gift by his father. Written in first-person perspective, Peter recounts the events of his childhood before the funeral of his father. The mood of the story is mournful, and emotional, yet happy as Peter realizes the life his father has lived and the incident of the lost penny, which made Peter understand the amount of love and affection his father had for him. The protagonist (Peter) has never seen a penny as bright as gold; he thought all of them were black, and the penny remains the only thing his father could offer him. The father did not give the penny to Peter immediately, not until he noticed it and had shown a sign that the gift would be welcome. 

Peter describes the magic in the August afternoon : 

 “the lifting smells of leaves and cut clover hung still in the sun“, “the sun drowsed, like a kitten curled up on my shoulder“. 

One understands the pleasant environment that envelops Peter after having received the bright gold penny. It can be understood as Peter’s happiness being displaced by the environment surrounding him, which makes nature seem agreeable, pleasant, and warm to the protagonist. Excited and delighted at the new shining penny, Peter buries it in the ground and pretends to search for it, like finding gold or treasure, which suggests his desire to discover gold or treasure, similar to the fictional tales that a child reads. This implies the innocence of Peter in his childhood. Although he is a child, he thinks of looking for potential solutions to his father’s worries, i.e., by buying him a mowing machine with the hypothetical treasure.  

After losing the penny, Peter is afraid of the shame and the awful feeling that he would have to experience since he has lost something precious, gifted to him by his father, which in time could have become a solution to their worries. The next morning, instead of leaving for the field, Peter and his father look for the lost penny. 

We walked down the road together, stiff with awareness. He didn’t hold my hand” 

Although the father cares for his child, he is restrictive in nature with respect to showing love and affection.

The father thought Peter hid because he was afraid of him and would hit Peter for the loss. “Pete”, he said, “you needn’ta hide; I wouldn’ta beat you”. Here, the reader recognizes the true nature of the father, who might seem severe, strict, and distant but is loving and affectionate with his children. Touched by Peter’s thoughtful action, he teared up and put his hand around Peter. The father put the penny back into his pocket with the idea of saving the penny and this memory for a lifetime. Later, Peter found the penny in the upper vest pocket, where no one carries change, yet his father had the gold-shining penny as a token of love and remembrance. 

Penny in the Dust Themes 

In the story ‘Penny in the Dust’, the author engages his reader with the themes of love affection, and family.

The theme of love and affection is demonstrated in the father-son relationship between Peter and his father. While recalling the memory of their father, Peter and his sister laugh over losing a “bright as gold”, “shining new” penny that their late father had given to Peter as a gift. While the father might seem like a person of an authoritarian and firm personality, he is soft and lovable at heart. He cares for his children and is affectionate towards them, but he fails to demonstrate his emotions. When Peter loses the penny, he hides in his room and does not have supper. It is the father who asks Peter to have supper instead of worrying. The next morning, the father, along with Peter, goes in search of it, which indicates his concern for his children’s worries. Finally, he keeps the penny as a token of the love that he has received from Peter.

The theme of family as a close-knit unit is seen throughout the text. The entire family is concerned and, in a hurry, to find Peter since he’s been lost in their sight. The father is upset and races “right through the chopping where Tom Reeve was burning brush” to look for Peter. His mother miraculously found Peter in his bed, while she looked for him everywhere and finally took her chances without any reasonable hope. The coming together of the family for the funeral describes the final respects the children had to offer to their father.

Penny in the Dust Title 

The title ‘Penny in the Dust’ is significant because the narrator remembers this particular memory of the lost penny before his father’s funeral. It highlights how etched in memory is the incident of the lost penny, for the protagonist to clearly remember it. The protagonist associates the event of the lost penny with his father’s love and affection. Thus, along with the lost penny that is found in the dust, the protagonist also discovers an alternate side to his father’s personality. 

Penny in the Dust Character Sketch

Peter, the protagonist, is a dynamic character because, through the technique of flashback, he takes the reader on his childhood journey to finally being a grown adult. He thinks the penny is a symbol of the approval and trust that his father offers him. “How could I bear the shame of repeating before him the childish visions I had built in my head …” Here, the protagonist thinks of himself as awful for having lost the penny.

The father is a round character and has a complex and layered personality. “If I say that he never held me on his knee when I was a child and that I never heard him laugh out loud in his life, it would make him sound humorless and severe.” The narrator struggles to give a description that might accurately fit their father without making the readers feel that he had a stringent father. Through the incident of the lost penny, the soft nature of the father is revealed to the readers, and one understands him as a loving, caring, and compassionate father to his children.

Penny in the Dust Literary Device

 Buckler employs literary devices like symbolism, foreshadowing, and the technique of flashback in the short story ‘Penny in the Dust’.

The author uses the technique of flashback to narrate an incident from Peter’s childhood- 

 “After the fashion of families who gather again in the place where they were born, to identify ourselves with the strange children we must have been“

 Peter and his sister are adults recalling the memory of their late father. Peter remembers the personality of his father through the story of the lost penny in the dust. 

The penny in the dust serves as a major symbol in the story. The event of Peter realizing the amount of love, care, and affection his father had for him occurs through the lost penny. Peter values the penny because it symbolizes the trust his father placed in him as a seven-year-old kid. When Peter lost the penny, he felt ashamed of the deed and awful because it would have proven him worthy of his father’s love.

Finally, the author uses foreshadowing as the characters of Peter and his sister are trying to remember a memory of their father, giving the readers a hint of the event that is to unfold in the latter half of the story with Peter disappearing since he has lost the shining, bright gold penny.