Jimmy The Crooks

Character actions are the things the characters do. In “A Retrieved Reformation”, Jimmy or “Ralph” saves Agatha from the locked bank vault. “With the act, ralph D. Spencer passed away and Jimmy took his place… -he threw the bolts and opened the door”. However , Jimmy had to show his old self. In the past Jimmy had a criminal life.

To begin, the warden informs Jimmy about his father death, Jimmy is left in disbelieve. “Just as well, because your family doesn’t want you to attend the funeral service (Baca 233).” Then, when Jimmy is released from prison he uncovers that his uncle Julian, called the warden, requesting that Jimmy dose not attend the funeral of Damacio Baca. Julian’s action is due to Damacio leaving Jimmy a twenty thousand dollars insurance policy for Jimmy, so he could a hire a good lawyer and defend his case. However his uncles took the money and spent it on a liquor license (Baca 235). Jimmy realizes prison is killing his humanity, he could not cry to grieve over his father’s death even though is emotions were genuine. Finally Jimmy honors Damacio by vowing that prison system will not break his sprite or stain his

Different events, positive and negative, changed his thoughts and helped him become more mature, and a responsible person. Watching his home going to the work made him realize he should do something in his life. Once he started working, he learned to be respectful and reliable even if it took a while for him to change. Once he became more familiar with Penny, she starts to trust him. She starts to give more responsibility. With that in mind, the accident that Penny had changed everything. It ended the relationship between him and Kentucky. However, he moved on without much difficulty. At the end, he was still thinking about his father's words and what he said about the white boys. He never forgot him. Perhaps, the father also had a positive effect on

Trying to make ends meet, he turns to selling drugs. By the time Jimmy finds love ones more and decides to settle down tragedy occurs. Trying to escaping from a drug bust at a friend’s house his attempts end up with a conviction for murder. Due to his illiteracy, Jimmy couldn’t read the false accusations he never committed.

Before his accident, Johnny worked as one of the best silversmith’s around known and respected by all. However, once he lost the use of his hand, his ability to practice his skill in this trade vanished. Once he could no longer help support the family with his work, he found himself virtually useless to them. Determined to keep Johnny, the Lapham family found chores and odd jobs for him to do around the house. But in his self-conceited misery he slacked off on the simplest tasks and completed every job half-heartedly.

Jimmy's transformation begins when he decides to burn the pictures and letters of his girlfriend, Martha. To be a leader in war was meaningless to Jimmy Cross compared to the love he had for Martha. Cross' subsequent burning of Martha's letters suggests that he's determined to put such romantic ideas behind him. He repeatedly convinces himself that there will be no more fantasies about Martha. The burning of Martha’s things is symbolically used by O’Brien to signify a turning point in Cross’ development. Cross realizes that Martha's feelings for him were not those of love, for she is an English major, a girl who lives in the world of words. Cross was rationalizing his un-requiting love for Martha to create a “home world” inside his mind so that he could mentally escape from the war when he needed to.

Finally, Ben Price does not prosecute Jimmy. Overall, Jimmy from “A Retrieved Reformation” is anything but a villain. Jimmy gives money to a blind man.

From a young age, Walker had a taste for extravagance, and an eye for cultural arts. As a student, Jimmy never excelled, or did exceptionally well. His father, wanting him to follow in his footsteps, wanted him to study law but Jimmy had other ideas in mind. He had a strong passion for the arts, music and composition to be exact. His dream was to perform on Broadway, but that dream was short-lived after he failed to do so, and was sent to school to study law per his father’s request. Jimmy’s father, an immigrant, started out as a carpenter and died an assemblyman. Throughout every triumph and hardship Walker faced, he never neglected to remember the fact that his father, too, thrived on the “American dream”. His story inspired him to launch the campaign, “among his own”. The sole purpose of this campaign was to remind the public that he was just like them because his father, whom he idolized, also fled from poverty and despair. Jimmy had his own political tactics in order to gain respect from the public. It seemed as though he treated the citizens of New York more like an audience, and his politics like a charade. He did whatever he could to please the crowd, whether it was politically ethical or not. He was very flamboyant, and was perceived as a womanizing alcoholic. His actions closely allude to Jay Gatsby’s, in the Great Gatsby. The

Jimmy Valentine was trying to live a moral life because he showed honesty. On page 5, paragraph 14 it says, “Get away from the door… He set his suitcase on the table.” This shows that Jimmy was just trying to help Agatha get out of the safe and he wasn’t trying to steal any money like he used to do. Secondly, when Jimmy was writing a letter to his friend, he mentioned that Annabel, his fiance, believed in him. This shows that Jimmy was honest about wanting to marry Annabel because he truly loved her, not just because her father owned the local bank. Lastly, after Jimmy moved, he promised to himself that he’d give away his tools to a friend, showing that he no longer wanted to be

2.Jimmy fall in love with Martha at some point before the story but his love is apparently unrequited. He for some reason blames himself for Ted death even though he did not cause it. And Ted seems to have a tranquilizer addiction which explains why he has so much.

Jimmy Cross was the lieutenant in the Vietnam War and had a lot on his plate, as many of them did. Martha, a woman he loves and hopes one day he will be with her, writes him letters; she does not love him and Jimmy acknowledges that. Despite her feelings for him, Jimmy Cross preserve all of the letters she sent because they symbolize hope for him. He treated the letters like gifts; literally they may have made his bag a little bit heavier, but

This time he continued to be neglected by his mother, Cecilia, who later, has an affair with Richard and abandoned her own three children live in a better life. According to Jimmy, Cecilia dyes her hair to blonde and lie about her cultural heritage to get an approval from Richard’s family, “Little did I know that my mother had eloped to San Francisco with Richard, fleeing into a white world as “Sheila”, where she could deny her past, hide her identity, and lie about her cultural heritage”(17).  In addition, she does want any connection between her and her children, “Richard turned to Mom and explained that, since his parents were old- fashioned, it would be best if she said she was Anglo and that she was just babysitting us for a girlfriend” (15). Jimmy already lost his father, but now he was about to lose his mother to another man. Unfortunately, the loss of these two relationships later leads Jimmy and brother being sent to an orphanage after the death of his grandpa. Eventually, he was sent to a detention center. During his time in a detention center, Jimmy is personality became shattered.  At the detention center he exposed to individuals who were neglected by their parents and states, “Even as blood ran through the wounded kid’s fingers and down his arm, his eyes announced that it didn’t hurt, it was nothing, he had no feelings” (21). Those kids in the detention center in a

Jimmy had been troubled throughout his life especially during his childhood. His parents didn’t love him; his teachers didn’t think much of him, and the girl of his dreams was involved in child porn. At one part of the novel Jimmy asked his mother if he could get a cat and she replied, “No, Jimmy, you cannot have a cat. We’ve been over this before. Cats might carry diseases that would be bad for the pigoons.” Jimmy did not seem to get the love that he should from his parents but seemed to get through it. Atwood never really explained what the importance was to Oryx being in child pornography and wonder why that was even put in the novel. Problems continue for Jimmy even until the end of the story where he fights to survive when he believes that he is the only one left. It seemed that Jimmy wasn’t as good as Crake and couldn’t live up to Crake’s expectations as he went to a mediocre school and Crake went to a prestigious school.

This passage shows that Jimmy is not a leader. He is very passive toward his men. He says he want to keep them safe but he does not really do anything to stop them from getting killed. He feels guilty when one of his men dies and wishes he was not in charge so he would not be responsible for their safety. This shows that he is a good person but is not willing to take

After receiving the news about the murder, Jimmy explodes with emotions. “I remember, I was more afraid of my little daughter than I ever was of being in prison” (Dennis 34). This quote shows the fatherly love Jimmy had for Katie. It compared the strength Jimmy had through the rough times in jail and how afraid he was of losing Katie. Ultimately, Jimmy follows the wrong path. Jimmy not only fails to find his daughter’s murderer, but he also kills Dave along too. By looking though a psychoanalytic lens, one can interpret Jimmy’s fatherly instincts which are to try to unearth his daughter’s murderer no matter the cost.