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Who Is Dick Prosser In The Child By Tiger

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Hatred Kept Inside Both violence and evil exist in the human soul alongside gentleness and goodness. The short story "The Child by Tiger" is about the African American worker of the Sheppertons, Dick Prosser. In the earlier parts of the story, Prosser is a loving, hard-working man. Later one in Thomas Wolfe's "The Child of Tiger," Dick Prosser's violent and evil actions suddenly erupt. Upon introduction, Dick Prosser is pictured as a deeply religious, gentle, passionate, and multi-talented African American. Dick's passionate personality is shown when Dick is with the children, as “He called all of us ‘Mister’... ‘Cap'n’ Shepperton.” These greetings gave the children a feeling of being important and mature. These greetings also give Dick Prosser …show more content…

This incident happened all because of all the hateful, discriminating comments and all of the racism he has encountered in the past. After Lon Everett drove his car and collided with Mr. Shepperton’s car, the drunk Lon “swung viciously, clumsily, at the Negro, smashed him in the face.” These actions of Lon Everett are outrageous. There is no reason for Lon to do that to Dick, but this is what it was like in the South back then. This resentment and hate towards black people were tolerated in the past. It's like white people treated blacks as items or tools, something of that sort, and Dick doesn’t even retaliate, yet. Later on, Dick’s anger finally releases and kills several men, and he also kills Harris with a rifle. Then, two policemen tell him to come out, and as soon as the policemen kick down the door and come inside, as they are walking inside, Dick “shot him just above the eyes. The policeman fell forward on his face.” Dick knows that because he is a black man, he will not receive a fair trial, so he just goes berserk. His hunger for revenge has converted into his thirst for blood. This amount of unfair treatment has pushed Dick far enough for this to happen. Dick just couldn’t handle the amount of racism

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