Microblog Two: Parallels and Prejudice
This week I've been noticing some of the parallels between the two main characters (Eddie and his mother Darlene), since it has been clear that both of these individuals seem to follow some patterns. The major parallel between Eddie and Darlene has so far been their willingness to search for those they love. Eddie, despite being a small child at the time, decided to "encounter many peculiar people... walking across empty parking lots whose fault lines sprouted crabgrass and sparkled with nuggets of safety glass.. broken doors," in order to have a chance of finding his mother. His willingness to go to places that have been severely damaged, and his lack of fear going to places where safety glass litters roads demonstrates Eddie slowly developing into the "man of the house" that Eddie has to be to provide for himself in his mother's absence (Hannaham 45).
Darlene also takes to the streets to solve the mysteries that haunt her loved ones, such as her dead husband. Although the police had not found enough evidence to locate a suspect, Darlene tried to gather as much information as she could. She "decided that she should independently collect" information that could help find the people who killed Nat, yet she was unable to find much more evidence than the police. Both quests, however, depict the policemen who come to the seen as somewhat lazy. In Eddie's case, the police say that they will watch out for his mother, and in Darlene's predicament the authorities say that they will continue to investigate the case.
Darlene and Eddie end up viewing the police as unhelpful or unwilling to find more on the case due to ethnicity differences. The concept of race has been present throughout the book, since many of the main characters are African American in a society where prejudice still exists to a larger extent than it does today. When describing Nat's plan to have African people in Ovis unite and have their voices heard, stories such as a girl being "abducted raped and gutted with a fish knife" by the Ku Klux Klan. These images display the harsh reality of living in a society where black people are oppressed even without slavery putting them at a direct disadvantage.
Darlene also takes to the streets to solve the mysteries that haunt her loved ones, such as her dead husband. Although the police had not found enough evidence to locate a suspect, Darlene tried to gather as much information as she could. She "decided that she should independently collect" information that could help find the people who killed Nat, yet she was unable to find much more evidence than the police. Both quests, however, depict the policemen who come to the seen as somewhat lazy. In Eddie's case, the police say that they will watch out for his mother, and in Darlene's predicament the authorities say that they will continue to investigate the case.
Darlene and Eddie end up viewing the police as unhelpful or unwilling to find more on the case due to ethnicity differences. The concept of race has been present throughout the book, since many of the main characters are African American in a society where prejudice still exists to a larger extent than it does today. When describing Nat's plan to have African people in Ovis unite and have their voices heard, stories such as a girl being "abducted raped and gutted with a fish knife" by the Ku Klux Klan. These images display the harsh reality of living in a society where black people are oppressed even without slavery putting them at a direct disadvantage.
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