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T. J. Taylor Impact

Decent Essays

Have you ever encountered a person who has had a negative impact on the community? In Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry, T.J. has the biggest negative impact on the community. T.J. is a twelve year old boy in the seventh grade. T.J. lives in Mississippi and his family is low on income. In Mississippi, 1933 T.J. becomes friends with the Logan kids, Cassie, the main character, her brother Stacey, and youngest brother Claude, mostly known as Little Man. T.J has the largest negative impact on the community because he caused mama to get fired, he breaks into the Barnetts Mercantile, and he cheats on his test and blames someone else. T.J does not positively impact the community because T.J is the reason why mama gets fired. He tells …show more content…

Cassie is yelling at T.J saying that “You told on mama, T.J. Now she is unhappy ‘cause she can’t teach school no more and it’s all your fault, and we don’t like you no more!”(Taylor 192-193). T.J. is now known as the reason behind mama getting fired, and the reason why the logans get no income. This is important because now the Logan’s have no way to get money and it was all T.J.’s fault. When T.J says, “‘When I catch up with that little rascal, I'm gonna beat him to a pulp, ‘round here tellin everyone that I got Miz Logan Fired’” (Taylor 192). Stacey responds saying, “‘Ah, stop lying, T.J... Don't nobody believe you’”(Taylor 192). T.J. is lying about telling Mr. Granger that mama is not teaching from the book, and Stacey is fed up with all of T.J.’s lies. …show more content…

is lying so frequently then no one is going to believe him anymore. Also, he is saying that he is going to beat up someone for his own wrongdoing. This is proving that T.J. has a negative impact on the community because T.J.’s lies will eventually catch up to him. Although it is true that Mama was not teaching from the book, it was T.J’s fault for telling Mr.Granger. T.J is a negative influence on the community because he caused mama to get fired, and keeps lying about it but, seeing that T.J is also the reason why the Barrnett family passes away will show that T.J has a negative impact on the community. T.J. is the main cause of how Mrs. and Mr. Barrnett died. T.J. became friends with R.W. and Malvin Wallace, and they were a bad influence on T.J. R.W. and Malvin found out that “In the storage room at the back of the store was a small open window through which a child or person as thin as T.J. could wiggle”(Taylor 246). T.J. helped the Wallace brothers break into the Barnett’s Mercantile through the back, and they tried to break into the locked gun box. When the Barnetts heard weird sounds, they decided to come downstairs to see what was happening “R.W. whopped Mr. Barnett solidly on the head from behind with the flat of the axe...”(Taylor 246-247). Also “As soon as Mrs. Barnett saw her husband fall... slapped at her and she fell back, hitting her head against one of the stoves, and did not move.”(Taylor 247). Even though T.J. did not physically

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