The novel ‘Jasper Jones’ written by Craig Silvey is set in the small town of Corrigan, Western Australia during the Vietnam war (1960’s). One night Jasper Jones the towns scapegoat went to Charlie Bucktin an innocent boy asking for help. Jasper takes Charlie to his secret glade in the bush where Charlie sees Laura wishart’s body hanging from a tree. Jasper wants Charlie to help move the body and find out who killed Laura before he is blamed. Jasper is often blamed for everything in the town because he is a ‘Half-caste’ and has not been raised well so parents make sure their kids do not hang around him. Throughout the novel we see Charlies eyes opened to the world around him as he is exposed to murders and racism.
Charlie the thirteen-year-old
Montana 1948 by Larry Watson is a novel set during the time of post Second World War in the rural town of Bentrock – located in Mercer County, Montana USA. There are a series of events that occur which demonstrate how abusing power can result in catastrophic consequences which affect both individuals and communities. Characters Frank, Julian, Wes, and the whole white community abused their capabilities which resulted in negative outcomes.
Karen Russel’s “The Star-Gazer’s Log of Summer-Time Crime” accounts the story of a boy named Ollie as he attempts to fit in with a boy that leads the group to commit “Summer-time crimes”. Russel is successful in creating a memorable story through symbolism, unique characters, and a poignant ending.
One of these being William Chambliss’s handling of the “Saints and the Roughnecks” where the ‘Saints’ are a collection of 8 white upper- middle- class boys on the pre-collage trail in high school, who participate in astonishing large amounts of truancy, a countless acts of drinking and driving, minor stealing and vandalism, and a lot of cheating in school all while maintaining the perfect image. On the other hand, the ‘Roughnecks’ were a group of six lower-class boys who engage in studious amounts of fighting (typically between themselves or alongside other lower-class boys) and shoplifting, who are frequently detained, and whose appearance in the public is horrendous. In Chambliss 's view, the Saint’s behavior partook at least as much prospect of impending community harm as the behavior of the Roughnecks. (Chambliss, 1973)
In “Barn Burning,” the author, William Faulkner, composes a wonderful story about a poor boy who lives in anxiety, despair, and fear. He introduces us to Colonel Satoris Snopes, or Sarty, a boy who is mature beyond his years. Due to the harsh circumstances of life, Sarty must choose between justice and his family. At a tender age of ten, Sarty starts to believe his integrity will help him make the right choices. His loyalty to family doesn’t allow for him to understand why he warns the De Spain family at such a young age. Faulkner describes how the Snopes family is emotionally conflicted due to Abner’s insecurities, how consequences of a father’s actions can change their lives, and how those choices make Sarty begin his coming of age into
Violence and murder was also present throughout the novel, mostly caused by Schoolteacher. Schoolteacher burned Sixo, one of the sweet home boys, alive after attempting to escape. Paul A Garner, another sweet home boy, was tortured killed and hung ?headless and feetless? after being caught during escape. And after Sethe told on the boys who stole her breast milk to Mrs. garner, Schoolteacher ordered one of them to ?open up her back?. The beating she received from the nephews left a tree shaped myriad of scars ?with a trunk, branches, and even leaves? (Beloved 16). Another atrocious yet ?justifiable? murder was Sethe?s murder of her baby Beloved. ?Sethe kills her child so that no white man will ever ?dirty her,? so that no young man with ?mossy teeth? will ever hold down the child and suck her breasts? (Barnett 68). Her justification was to save Beloved from being returned to a life of slavery, rape, and murder.
Have you faced racial persecution due to the color of your skin? The time was 1900’s and this was the nightmare that Ida B. Wells-Barnett wrote of in Mob Rule in New Orleans. This is the true account of Robert Charles as he fights for his life to escape the hands of a lynching mob. This impassion story collaborates with the witness of this terrifying event that Wells describes. Wells uses her literary skills to shed light on racial discrimination, media bias, and her personal crusade for justice to portray this heart wrenching reality of the violent lynching during the 19th century.
The reading begins off with describing a mother, Dinah Kirkland and her traumatic experience with the concept of lynching. During the early 1930’s her son went missing after he was arrested and although Dinah knew that her son had been the product of a lynching, she could do nothing about it. She did not know where he was kept, who killed him, or even why he was killed. She contacted the head of the NAACP, and told him the fear she had regarding her son. Members of the African- American society came together to help Kirkland with her efforts, and eventually, Dinah did find the remains of her eighteen-year-old son.
The article, “The lonely death of Chanie Wenjack,” by Ian Adams describes the horrific and forlorn lives that many Indigenous children faced in residential schools. However, this story focuses on the lonely young boy, Charlie Wenjack, who took his last breath in the attempt to escape the hatred towards his culture and find his father. As Adams stated, “This, then, is the story of how a little boy met a terrible and lonely death, of the handful of people who became involved, and of a town that hardly noticed”(Adams, 1967). Charlie grew to be empty and rejected, longing for the love of his father. He devised a plan to run away from school with his two friends: Ralph and Jackie MacDonald. Wenjack was on a mission to travel the 400 miles on foot
‘Fire in a canebrake’ is quite a scorcher by Laura Wexler and which focuses on the last mass lynching which occurred in the American Deep South, the one in the heartland of rural Georgia, precisely Walton County, Georgia on 25th July, 1946, less than a year after the Second World War. Wexler narrates the story of the four black sharecroppers who met their end ‘at the hand of person’s unknown’ when an undisclosed number of white men simply shot the blacks to death. The author concentrates on the way the evidence was collected in those eerie post war times and how the FBI was actually involved in the case, but how nothing came of their extensive investigations.
The 1960's was a really dark period for the many people whose race was noticeably different. Indigenous Australians, in most states were deprived of full citizenship of the new nation on grounds of their race. Restrictive immigration laws were also in place at the time to preference "white" European immigrants to Australia. However, people's perceptions were slowly beginning to change in the late 1960's.
Soon after Moody entered high school, Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago, was killed for whistling at a white woman. After hearing about the murder, Moody realized she really did not know much about what was going on around her. ?Before Emmett Till?s murder, I had known the fear of hunger hell and the Devil but now there was a new fear known to me ? the fear of being killed just because I was black.? Moody?s response to this was asking her high school teacher, Mrs. Rice, about Emmett?s murder and the NAACP.
In the short story “Sunny Blues” by James Baldwin it is nothing more than the distance between two estranged brothers. As well coming to understanding the pain, suffering, frustration, and triumphs your brother have endured. The story takes places in Harlem NY, more around 1950 around the Harlem Renaissance, a time of poverty, drugs, violence around the African American community. The characters include Sunny, who is the opposite of his brother. He’s a musician, outgoing, he lives in the present, sympathetic, set his own rules, and content with his life choices. The narrator, Sunny brother he judgmental, he lives in the past as everyone he meets he create a little history about them. He does not know how to express his emotions. Isabel the wife and mother of the
This was not the only event that had occurred that day. Soon another tragedy struck the colored community. Virgil was on his way to the Birmingham Church when a he got a call calling him there as the novel states, “You need to get to Birmingham right away”(Lewis et al. 11; 5). On his way there Virgil was shot and killed by a young white man who was participating in a Klan Rally nearby. Virgil was 13 years old when he was murdered by two white teenagers that were active members of the Eagle Scouts and participants in a Klan rally. This shows that even white teenagers were taught to have a strong hate towards people of color. Not only is it a strong hate it has gotten to the paint that they are murdering people of color on sight without regard of who they are and what they are doing. Not long after this tragedy with Virgil, another Black teenager by the name of Johnny Robinson was shot and killed by a police officer
As the many families camp together, proximity combined with necessity breaks down barriers of relation, and miniature societies form with there own unwritten rules and expectations. It is in one of these "Hoovervilles" that the Joads have a wicked confrontation with a vigilant police officer. A woman is shot, Tom and Floyd Knowles nearly become fugitives, and Jim Casey is arrested and thus removed from both the family and society. This sacrificing of self for the good of the group strengthens the bonds between the migrants in the Hooverville, and Casey's experience with fellow inmates in prison gives him an important realization about the power of organized protest. Incidentally, these terrible losses at the Hooverville drive the Joads in fear to what will turn out to be a far better place, and the knowledge that there are others in the same situation who will help lends unifying strength to the family and other migrants.
Charles Chesnutt uses real life scenarios to illustrate the meaning of his stories. He also was a socially conscious writer who addressed racial issues that shaped the cultural climate of his time. Chestnutt, as a writer, successfully passed as a white author for most of his career, which allowed him access unavailable to his identifiable black counterparts. Suprisingly, most of his work focused on black experiences during Reconstruction, but specifically “The Wife Of His Youth” captured much about the issues plaguing his society at the time through the racial theme and realism style of writing he incorporated.