James Harries Two: An Analysis

Considering the environment in which James grew up certainly had an impact on his life. Some of the influences in his life were being poor, racism, his parents and the church. The areas that affected his moral development stem from when he grew up, doing the time of segregation. Segregation had an impact on how he viewed the world. He felt that everyone should be treated equally. James’s moral belief was that blacks should have a choice, and have the same opportunities as others. When he saw the separate drinking fountains for whites and blacks, he recalls the mental pain, but for him only God could take care of. He used his music as away to communicate how he felt. Growing up poor affected James’s emotional development. He never wanted any handouts.

We continue with Part Two of Sydney hockey “lifer” Blair Joseph who, for the majority of his 70-odd years, has been deeply devoted to the sport.

Re-read lines 1 – 24, what can you tell about the teacher and the speaker.

She was surprised that he was telling his personal story to them, so had a debate about the importance of ‘person’ against Tony. Unlike tony, she strongly took a stance that the literature professor would never should give irrelevant personal anecdote to her students and considered a waste of time to do so. When they were having arguments, Tom Newhouse, professor emeritus, stepped into the Hub Pub. Although Janet did not wanted obnoxious Newhouse to disrupt them, Newhouse did actually recognized her and came up to their table. In the middle of conversation, he brought up James Cox and how he deliberately wrote the paper. However, Janet’s question whether James, who was caught for plagiarism in her class, actually wrote the essay or not, upset Newhouse and made him leave the

First of all, James is very protective of himself. In other words, he protects himself physically because he does not want to get hurt. To illustrate, in the book James says, “We’ve got to get away” he says this because The Snakes (who are the rival gang) have a gun and he doesn’t want to get shot. As a result, this protects him physically,

In this story, there are times when James pays more attention to his family, and times where he pays more attention to his little brother, Isaac. In the beginning, James thinks a little bit about taking Isaac out to see the K-bones. James is kind of nervous, but not to the point where he would leave Isaac at home. So, James decides to bring Isaac along, when he and Isaac are really supposed to be at home. At this time, James doesn’t really worry to think about the danger that he could only put himself in, but he could also put Isaac in a peril, too. So, James cares more about his friends than Isaac. Another example that proves this is when James starts to go out. For example, he says “ Kris says they’re just a bunch of kids who hang out and do cool stuff. Like a club. Tonight, I have to prove myself so I can be in their club, too.” This shows me that James is more focused on his friends because instead of watching Isaac like he’s supposed to, he wants to

James grew up in a racist and segregated part of history. Often times racial slurs were used to describe people of African descent during the time James was growing up. Even during school James would be called these horrendous names: “...someone in the back of the class whispered, “James is ni**er!” followed by a ripple of tittering and giggling across the room” (McBride 89). The fact that small school children call blacks these names shows how racist the many people are and the hatred and discrimination that blacks face. These experience taught James how people treat those that appear to be different. Another experience that taught James this was when he and his family went to the Jewish store and were discriminated against. McBride had many experiences in which he and his family were discriminated against whether it was by the police or store owners: “Some of these Jews can’t stand you” (86). All in all, incidents with people who have a particular dislike for blacks shaped James into the way

There is an absence of men in the novel. James is one of the few men seen throughout the story and because of this, the story suggests that he holds a lot of power. He is a difficult character to understand because his true intentions and feelings are hidden beneath what is being portrayed on the outside. James begins as someone who is displayed as positive, respectful and loving of women, but as the story progresses, it is revealed that he views women more as a sexual object or a slave to men. He tricks the reader into believing that he values and considers women as equals to

Everything started going downhill from there and that's where the conflict of interest begins. James left the house in the mornings but didn't go to school and says himself that he was practically a dropout. "I spent as much time away from home as possible. I quit church and avoided my deeply religious godparents. I was the first kid on my block to smoke cigarettes and reefer" (McBride, 138) shows the ways he was acting out, also including stealing from freight cars with his friends. He was even caught by the police once. With James out of the house all the time, his mother suffered more because no one was there to help her with her young children. He was hurting but was too stubborn to admit it and "reefer and wine helped me to forget any pain, and as the pain and guilt increased, my problems with drugs worsened" (McBride, 142). All the while his mother knew nothing about it. Until one day when he gave her a forged report card with a grade unlike his usual ones and she called the school only to find out something way worse than what she expected. From then on, James spent the summers with his sister Jack in Kentucky who his mother thought could straighten him out. Jack's husband lets James run free with him and he finds himself often at a place called the

One of the themes was the burden of secrets that were kept. As a young boy, James knew very little about his mother’s childhood background. James’s mother Ruth discouraged his curiosity about her past and her background. She really never wanted her kids to know the things that she went through as a child and as a young adult. She was ashamed of the things that she went through, so she kept everything inside.What I think is going to happen is that James is that he is gonna have to realize that he can not be out doing drugs and skipping school. also he is going to have to grow up really fast.

This is fueled by, not only the changing emotions that teenagers typically endure, but also by the death of his stepfather, whom he saw as his own father. After his death, James cannot bear to see his mother suffer, for she no longer knows how to control the dynamics of the family and "wandered in an emotional stupor for nearly a year." James instead turns to alcohol and drugs, dropping out of school to play music and go around with his friends, which James refers to as "my own process of running, emotionally disconnecting myself from her, as if by doing to I could keep her suffering from touching me." Instead of turning to his family and becoming "the king in the house, the oldest kid," James "spent as much time away from home as possible… absolve[ing] [himself] of all responsibility…" As a result, Ruth sends James to live with his older half sister and her husband, in an attempt to straighten her out her son's life. James distracts himself with the life he found there, spending the summers on a street corner with his half sister's husband, Big Richard, whom he adores, and the unique men that frequented the area. During these summers, James discovers "[He] could hide. No one knew [him]. No one knew [his] past, [his] white mother, [his] dead father, nothing. It was perfect. [His] problems seemed far, far away." Instead of facing the realities of loss and anger in his family, James seeks distractions

James appears to be using limited cross-checking behaviours. Self-correction behaviour is nil, at least in this instance. Evidence shows he is using mostly meaning and visual cues and not drawing on structural cues. As a result of not utilising all the sources of information afforded by the text his understanding and comprehension of the text is quite limited and there is no evidence he has really connected with the text. In recent years there has been much research on reading

In James’ case he knew that if he worked hard at school he could gain his fathers approval. However it seemed that he was in the shadow of his brother, who was also under the same pressure. He had turned to cheating to get better marks to avoid his father’s disapproval. James’ own sense of right and wrong were being clouded by his loyalty to- and competition with his brother, also his need for approval from his father and his sense of duty to protect his frail mother by “not

James is a 16 year old male who has applied and moved to a very intelligent, and private school in England. Where they accepted him and would teach him. He is rapidly premeditated as the new

James is learning to be stronger. He wants to hug his mother and comfort her, and his teeth hurt him so bad he wants to cry. Octavia tells him that crying displays weakness. He knows that his teeth need to be seen by a dentist but he thinks about how they do not have that much money, and that is a sacrifice he will make. James is thinking about the family, and knows that money can go towards something else.