Tre Character Analysis

Everyone is tempted by sex, drugs, easy money and the power generated from violence and vengeance. The film “Boyz N the Hood” follows Tre, who moves to a neighborhood in the socioeconomically disadvantaged South Central with his father and becomes involved with new friends. The movie best portrays how being of low socioeconomic status during that time had a devastating effect on an adolescents development. For many young people during that era, the future is a day that never came.

Prior to being assigned the reading of the memoir “Always Running”, by Luis Rodriguez, I had never given much thought on juveniles involved in gang life. Rodriguez achieved success as an award-winning poet; sure the streets would no longer haunt him - until his own son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in the vivid memoir, “Always Running.” “Always Running” is the compilation of events Luis experienced during his youth in San Gabriel. The theme of the book is to always strive for the best things in life and to always take a stand for what you believe. Lured by the seemingly invincible gang culture of East L.A., he witnessed countless shootings and beatings, as well as senseless acts of street crime against his friends and family members. As a Latino in a poor neighborhood, Luis struggled through criticism, stereotypes, and mistreatment. With the help of his mentor, Chente, Luis saw a way out through education and the power of word to successfully break free from years of violence and desperation.

Boyz N the Hood Sociological Essay In the 1991 drama “Boyz in the Hood”, Written and Directed by John Singleton. He successfully attempts to portray what life was like and in some areas in America still is for African Americans living in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood. It displays a portrait of the harsh realities that plagues the black community and by displaying uninviting living conditions that is South Central L.A, Singleton aims to share to the world the self-destructive deviant behavior that is to this day, destroying the African American community. Some of the self-destructive deviant behaviors include gang life, selling drugs, and gun violence. Various issues are displayed in this movie involving the black community including deviance, poverty, gentrification, the importance of a father in a young man’s life and black on black crime. Singleton displays a tale of three friends growing up in the “hood”, plagued by drugs and violence and layers textures over rough and compelling visuals of black culture that shows us what it means to come to maturity, or die trying, as a black male. In this essay, I will be giving a thorough analysis of the film, as well as covering certain points from the movie from a sociological perspective to explain why singleton chose to write this film.

Jimmy knows too well the agonies of abandonment. First, when his mother, Cecilia, ran away with Richard to pursue a better lifestyle. Then, due to his father’s, Damacio Baca, alcoholisms and violent behavior; he also had to leave Jimmy behind. In spite of the drawbacks from abandonment to being a maximum security prisoner in Arizona State Prison, Jimmy preserver’s the darkness of prison by overcoming his illiteracy. However Cecilia and Damacio is not as fortunate as their child; Cecilia is shot by Richard after confronting him for a divorce and Damacio chokes to death after he is released from the detox center(Baca 263). Therefore the most significant event in this section of the memoir, A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca is the death of Jimmy’s parents.

The movie Boyz N the Hood is an illustration of how a group of early adolescents’ lives was affected negatively due to the environment they lived in. These adolescents lived in an environment where drugs, gangs, and shootings were the center of their community. Living in a predominantly African American community these adolescents were faced with many misfortunes. Ricky one of the adolescent characters I have decided to evaluate for this particular paper was faced with adversity.

In order to survive, the main characters must fit in with the community or risk alienation. In The Outsiders, the rivalry, between the Greasers and Socs, remains because generations of innocent boys have grown and fit into their deemed places in adolescent society and fueled the rivalry under the assumption that “nothing ever changes…Greasers will still be Greasers and Socs will still be Socs,” a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only way for boys on the east side to protect themselves from Socs is to assimilate to the Greaser community and participate in the fights against the Socs. Boyz n the Hood depicts Tre’s struggle to assimilate to hood culture where women are treated poorly and used for sex. Tre affects a “hood” vernacular and regales his father with tales of his sexual adventures, despite being a virgin, with a woman named Tisha. Despite knowing his father’s stance on the contraception, Tre claims not to have used protection inciting his father’s disappointment and anger on purpose. The film emphasizes the struggle between Tre’s background and his environment by blocking the two characters in a tight frame with Tre backed up against a refrigerator and Furious invading Tre’s intimate space, symbolic of education

Impending Reality In John Updike’s short story “A & P”, a dynamic and round character expresses his subjective attitude towards his views, a plot twist causes him to realize his future. Sammy an opinionated cashier at A & P grocery store does not agree with his Lengel, his manager after he

Grace has been told for more than half her life that she was crazy. Her mother’s death that she witnesses was an accident, there was no scarred man, and there was nothing she could do to change what had happened. But Grace knew they were wrong. With the help of her friends Noah, Megan and Rosie, she managed to discover that the scarred man was Dominic, the first love of her mother, who was there to kill her mother, but chose instead to stage her death. Grace came down just as Dominic was taking the picture, and picked up the gun that was lying on the floor. Firing blinding, she missed Dominic and shot her mother instead. The traumatic moment of shooting her mother was blocked from Grace’s mind as it was unable to handle what she did. Her family tries to protect her from this, saying it was an accident, trying to get Grace to stop pushing. When pushing too hard, Grace discovers the truth of what happened that night, and what she did, and with the

Random Family Book Review Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, the author of Random Family, depicts a diverse perspective of unpleasant life experiences people suffer from within ghetto communities. Although Random Family was not my choice to read, I am privileged to have read this remarkable book as it conveys distinctive similarities that accurately represent the male populace who live in underprivileged urban communities. To expand on the earlier mentioned, young men who cohabitate in ghetto communities often have relatives who actively influence their participation in gangs, drug sells, and incarceration. As I read the book, I became conscious of the chapter headings as it correlates with the endeavors that young males face of a lower socioeconomic status. For example, chapter titles such as The Street I, Lock Down II, Upstate III, House-to-House IV and Breaking Out V represent the struggles young men face at a micro-level (Strong & Cohen, 2014, p. 51). Random Family conveys the message that men in ghetto communities is unable to overcome the adversities associated with the street life; however, this message is untrue as there are men who have prevailed over the life they inherited becoming successful individuals and not allowing themselves to become victims of their environment.

Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif” is about two young girls, named Twyla and Roberta, who grow up in an Orphanage because their mothers were in no condition to properly take care of them. The main theme in the “Recitatif” is concentrating on racism. A very mind- grabbing event in the story is how the author never tells the race of the two girls. Morrison leaves class codes but not racial codes, as in the story Twyla states, “ It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the mornings—it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race” (pg 201) , even the girls do not mention which race the other is. Recitatif is a great story as it plays with the reader’s emotions and effectively makes the reader aware of the stereotypes and each races characteristics.

In the media African Americans are stigmatized as being criminals and as always up to no good and especially during those time in Los Angeles, there was a lot of police brutality and violence against them. The African American cop that pulled them over, treated Tre like a criminal and assumes that he must of been part of a gang. Due to the high crime rate and violence by African Americans in that neighborhood, Tre and Ricky are automatically stigmatized as also being criminals because of the color of their skin. Lastly, achieved stigma is seen when Doughboy’s mother assumes that he had something to do with the death of his brother Tre just because he was a drug dealer. Doughboy was never his mother's favorite and was often verbally abused by her and at a young age went to juvie for stealing food. Doughboy’s actions contributed to him being stigmatized and his mother stigmatized him because she saw him as a criminal and only assumed the worst of

Boyz in the Hood is a statement of how urban youth have been passed a legacy of tragic indifference, and the writer has shown that it is an almost inescapable fate for those born into racism and poverty to repeat the patterns they wish to escape. The movie’s characters are clear representations of how the system fails young black youth in the United States, and the difference one mentor can make for these kids. During segregation young black children became targets for white brutality. This movie reflects what the European mentality and what it has done to the African American culture.

Some challenges between anti-social behaviors and geographic are evident in the film Boyz n the Hood. It a 90’s films created by John Singleton, about a boy Tre styles who is sent to live with his father Furious styles in South Central Los Angeles after he got into a fight at school. At his father 's house, he is taught morals and values of being a respected man. On the other hand, his friends Ricky and Doughboy who are half-brothers has a different upbringing with no real support system, resulting in forming a gang, involvement with drugs and a tragic ending. This film is based on the African American experience in terms of environmental conditions which results in a great deal of African American males being pushed into the criminal justice system.

The author of Recitatif, Toni Morrison, is an acclaimed writer known for her fictional stories and her explorations within the black community. Receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 was one of her most acclaimed accomplishments. Morrison’s American Midwest family had an unfathomable appreciation and love for black culture and showed this through there many traditions and storytelling. Recitatif, a fictional short story, was written in 1983.