Lessons Learned Late In S. E. Hinton

In the book it Bryon talks about how after he started dating Cathy him and Mark didn’t really hang out and have fun anymore. Bryon matures and doesn’t hang with Mark and becomes more selfless he said,” I had quit thinking about myself.” He was talking about how he now cared for Cathy and M&M. The final thing he did for maturing in the book was do the right thing even though he didn’t want to. He called the cops

It was said that James also wanted revenge over Mark for spreading lies to humiliate him. Mark was then put on trial for second - degree murder and was sentenced by judge Sammy life sentence. Mark pleaded guilty.

He links M&M condition with Mark selling drugs, which also explains where he has been getting all the money. Bryon ends up calling the cops. When Mark gets home he try’s defend what he’s done, Bryon then realizes that Mark has no sense of right or wrong what so ever. The cops come and take Mark away while he’s asking Bryon why he’s doing this. The next morning Bryon in not sure if what he did was right. He realizes he no longer loves Cathy and grows away from her. Later he testifies against Mark in court. In which his dumbness gets him five years in the state reformatory. Bryon ends up devoting himself to work where he gets a promotion from sack boy to clerk. At the end of the summer Bryon decides to go and see Mark. There he tries to apologize and talks about the good times they had but Mark rejects it saying “that was then, this is now.” Later mark gets sent up the river to the state prison. Bryon says he has lost his ability to care anymore he thinks about the events of the previous year trying to figure out what happened to make these things happen. He wishes he was a kid again when he had all the answers.

The book That was Then, This Is Now is about to really good friends Bryon and Mark starting to go their separate ways. Bryon was a 16 year old hustler who lived in a hood. His mother was poor and she had adopted his best friend Mark. Mark was an illegitimate who was adopted by new parents that got in a drunken fight and killed each other. Mark was a thief, and he always got away with everything that he possibly could do. Teen kids in there element who thought they could rule the world, everything was theirs and that nothing could possibly go wrong. They did everything bad together smoke, drink, jump kids for their money, steal, skip school, take drugs and get into gang brawls.

Mark Malloy was working his normal day job in the office, when suddenly he was given an assignment to a person who went missing with 5.6 million dollars that was from the law firm’s secret bank account. Mark acquiesced to the terms, but really he had no choice if he wanted to the mission or not. In Pleading Guilty, they send Mark to find Bert, the person missing. They want him found so he can retribution the money back he stole. While reading the novel I found three key settings in the book, which is the office Mark works in, the bar, and the court.

A major turning point in the authors’ life was when he attended Gallaudet University. At Gallaudet, he was surrounded by deaf peers and signing professors. To him, this was unbelievable. He was no longer behind from interpreters relaying information after it had already been said. Mark expresses this emotional state by saying he is no longer “living in a fishbowl anymore” (pg. 111). At one point earlier in the book, Mark compares himself to someone born underwater having to live in a glass bubble; someone who is unfortunately an outcast from the rest. But with the help of special scuba diving gear, you had the ability to interact and swim with the other fish. Although the scuba gear was accommodating in many ways, it was “heavy and uncomfortable, and as much as it helped you interact with the fish, you never were able to swim like them” (Pg. 44). In order to find out who he

Mark was selling drugs to get money for the household, because they needed the money. He even tried to get a job but he couldn’t because of his record, so this is the only way he thought he could help to get money. So Mark shows that he has good motives but bad methods, he was trying to help out but not in the best way. Also Mark has helped out Bryon so many times, gave him a shirt even though he stole it. He paid for Bryon’s coke when he got the money from hustling pool games.

It is something necessary, and can be change quite easily by people and characters. There were many relationships and decisions impacted, and Bryon always wondered, “What if all this did not happen?” Before M&M ran away, Bryon and Cathy were a perfectly happy couple. But after he ran away, Cathy, being the closest sibling to M&M, was extremely worried about him and started becoming hysterical. Bryon became increasingly worried about Cathy and M&M as the days went on. After one crazy night of looking and finding M&M weak and sick from taking drugs, Bryon came back home, shook, when he found a bottle of pills under his best friend, Mark’s, bed. On impulse, he called the cops on his best friend. After seeing what had happened to M&M, Bryon was troubled at the fact that Mark was selling harmful drugs to innocent children. If Bryon hadn’t experienced M&M’s escape from home, he may have made a better and more realistic decision. Now, what if all this hadn’t happened? If M&M had not run away and just talked to his father instead, he would have never taken drugs, Cathy wouldn’t have gone hysterical, there would have been a smaller chance of Bryon calling the police on Mark, and Mr. Carlson would have still learned his lesson. In other words, things would have been much better. Overall, all because M&M decide to ran away from his problems, a lot change very quickly, and for the

Growing up, Mark was mostly on the run from the government because his parents were one of the leaders of the rebellion. Right now Mark is eleven years old, this is the day everything had changed. The government had found where the rebels had been hiding and launched an attack. Many people had been taken including Mark’s parents. Mark himself barely escaped the capture of the government. But Mark remembered the last thing his mother told him “You must be brave son, as you are everyone's last hope.”

Mark Mathabane would never listen to his mom or grandma. Later on as a kid his mom and grandma tied him up and made him go to school, “Granny grabbed a piece of rope nearby and came to my mother’s aid. I bit and clawed every hand that grabbed me, and howled protestations against going to school; however, I was no match for the two determined matriarchs.” They finally took him to school, and when they took him to the principle office to sign him up, “The principal, seeing me staring at the canes, grinned and said, in a manner suggesting that he had wanted me to see them,” she said to him, “As long as you behave, I won’t have to use any of those on you.” His father had abused Mark Mathabane’s mother just for taking him to school, “Your father and I fought because I took

I have a couple of questions about the book that I would like to ask. What would it have been like if Bryon didn’t call the police on Mark? I’m asking this because it seemed like Mark and Bryon were growing farther and farther apart as they got older. Would they still have been best friends forever? I’m also wondering what made Bryon realize he had to do the right thing and call the police on Mark? They had been like brothers their whole entire lives, what was going

Bryon believed he did the right thing at that moment. I agree with Bryon. Mark basically said that he would change, even though he has shown time and time again that he is incapable of change (Hinton 145). For instance, Mark was already in trouble with the police for stealing cars. They put him on parole for stealing the cars. Even when he was on parole he stole his car to see his parole officer (Hinton, 16). This shows’ you he cant change his ways. Bryon was in the right to call the police on Mark for selling drugs (Hinton 145).

If anyone could get through to Mark it would be Bryon. Although Mark does not show many examples of maturing or taking responsibility, he does seem to be responsive to Bryon. For example, when Bryon was beaten up by the Shepards Mark wanted to get back at the Shepards. However, Bryon said he was tired of fighting and getting even with people (Hinton 129). Bryon told Mark not to fight the Shepards and at first Mark listened (Hinton 131).

In regard to the Marketplace Incident, Mark’s memory of the event is distorted, likely due to dissociation. Mark also reported experiencing memory difficulties since his return from combat. He stated that he struggles to remember things he is supposed to do because he is frequently preoccupied with intrusive thoughts and negative emotions related to his traumatic

"At school, I kept to myself, glowered in the hallways, and, with the right kind of provocation, punched people in the face." Mark is expected to feel a certain way about being Jewish, but that label means something different for him then it means for his parents. Such as when his family is leaving his grandparents in Vienna at the beginning of the story, his grandfather refuses to go chasing them around the globe. His reasoning being