In writing his novel “Monster”, Walter Dean Myers used his experience to keep the judicial system relevant to his points while still realistic. Steve’s attorney, O’Brien, is honest about her role in the system to Steve, telling him, “My job is to make sure the law works for you as well as against you.” Instead of pretending to be crusading for a not guilty verdict, O’Brien tells the truth that she intends to help hunt down the truth both for and against Steve as an unbiased tool of the court. This means that she will insure that the jury’s predispositions do not change their verdicts, that the prejudice of the court doesn’t change the evidence given in court, and that the evidence against Steve is legitimate and/or nonexistent.…
Monster is the story about a 16 year old black boy named Steve Harmon from Harlem. Steve is on trial for a being a possible accomplice to a murder. The book begins with him in jail waiting for his trial to start. The story is written in screenplay format, due to Steve’s passion for filmmaking, along with Steve's journal writing which he does even in the courtroom. Steve writes this way to keep his sanity while being in prison during the trial. The majority of the story takes place in the courtroom. Steve is there with another defendant, James King, who has his own attorney. The events of the robbery unfold through the accounts of witnesses, attorneys and the participants. The book is about Steve's trial and whether he will be found guilty of felony murder…
In his novel Monster, Walter Dean Myers demonstrates the complexity of the justice system, and how people can be tried unethically. The characters, Bobo Evans, Steve Harmon, James King, and Osvaldo Cruz all differ in magnitude of guilt and involvement, but were tried either too harsh, or let off too easily. What differs in each person’s case is attributed to biases including age, race, and cooperations with the police. The first poorly tried suspect in this felony-murder case was Osvaldo Cruz. Osvaldo is a fourteen year old boy who helped out in the robbery, but claimed it was in fear of the suspects that drove him to do this. Osvaldo gave tips to the police, helping them out with the crime. Due to this fact and his young age, he was not tried…
The gila monster has got to be the least identified creature I have ever studied. What I mean is on WikiPedia.com, a site I am thankful for because I have used it greatly on past reports and it is great, there is barely anything on the gila monster. There might be four paragraphs that are each four sentences, if that. So to do this report it took many,…
In society today, many African American males get caught up with authorities. The book “Monster” tells a story about how a few young men made mistakes. The Main character Steve Harmon had made a mistake and almost paid the cost. Steve was the lookout in a robbery. A murder had occurred during the robbery, but Steve was not the culprit.…
Imagine that you’re guilty of a crime just because you’re a young black teen living in Harlem New York. How would you feel? Well Steven Harman is, and he is on trial for murder. Monster is the books name written by Walter dean Myers. It’s called Monster because of what the prosecutor, Miss Petrecelli referred to Steve as. A theme found through out this book is prejudice and it is shown through his background, the jail, and the clothes.…
In Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, the reader learns from Steve Harmon’s experiences that sometimes guilt or innocence of a person might not be determined by solid evidence but by onlooker’s opinions and interpretation of the crime. There is not a large amount of scientific evidence in the case against Steve Harmon, so the jury must rely on Steve’s background information, their opinions of guilt and innocence, and the testimonies of the witnesses who are mostly criminals.…
Mark Twain once observed that a cat that jumps on a hot stove, it will learn a valuable lesson and in the future will not jump on hot stoves. Twain wryly points out that the cat will not also jump on cold stoves, either. The lesson it learned - -just as humans learn - - rather than make informed distinctions, it becomes easier to simply avoid the situation altogether. In John Taylor Gatto’s article, “From the Land of Frankenstein,” the former award winning teacher condemns the integrity of the American public education system, asserting it. In actuality, focuses more on training students for obedience rather than attempting to develop each individual’s talents and abilities. The American public education system destroys individual initiative in order for students to become more manageable parts in the overall social order in the country accomplishing this goal by rewarding compliance and discouraging individuality and ensuring dependant and obedient response to authority through curricula enforces students to respond passively to governing entities, and finally punishing those individuals who resist or refuse to assimilate the lessons with escalating levels of negative reinforcement. How much more evidence is necessary? Good schools don’t need more money or a longer year; they need real free-market choices, variety that speaks to every need and runs risks. We don’t need a national curriculum, or national testing either. Both initiatives arise from ignorance of how people learn, or deliberate indifference to it.” Our schools need to teach the values of free speech and individualism. Why do they continue to provide teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, or Abraham Lincoln who were big on freedom for mankind? But contradict by not allowing our kids express themselves openly. Dr. King once said “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Our children need to be taught the values of being able to make right choices and to be an…
Monsters are unpredicted and are made at anytime. Monsters show different actions that can affect what society acts upon them. We can see that monsters can be unfairly labeled by examining “Of Mice and Men”, “Born of A Man and Woman”, and “Monster”. People will jump to conclusion when it comes to labeling other people as monsters, this is because of the characteristics of disorders that people cannot understand,and the looks or appearance on one self changes people’s opinions. Through examination and explaining the actions of the author's use of text from Steinbeck,Myers, and Matheson, we can understand that people will claim to be unfairly labeled as monsters.…
James Baldwin paints a picture of the struggle between white men and black men. Baldwin points out that, “the white man prefers to keep the black man at a certain human remove because it is easier for him thus to preserve his simplicity and avoid being called to account for crimes committed by his forefathers, or his neighbors” (p2). At this point Baldwin was contemplating on the idea that “the white man never recognize a black man as an actual human being” (p3). The lack of recognition can cause hate in any human, but Baldwin remains claim.…
In James Baldwin’s “Stranger in a Village”, Baldwin describes racism and its origins. He sees and feels racism in the village when he writes, “But there is a great difference between being the first black man to be seen by whites. The white man takes the astonishment…
Have you ever been part of a group that turns into a mob just from one person doing something that gets everyone doing the same thing? For some people this happened to them and could have got them in trouble. In the story, The Twilight Zone “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” and “All Summers in a Day.” These stories show a group of people that could turn into a mob.…
The bad man in African American folklore came about in the postbellum period, after the civil war. During this time, many plantations adopted the sharecropping system, this entailed former slaves living on site and tending crops on the “very same plantations where they and their parents had been slaves” (Starr and Waterman, 33). There had also been a rise in groups such as the Ku Klux Klan that supported violence targeted towards the African American community. The bad man served to be a figure that was “celebrating the courageous and often rebellious exploits of black heroes” (Starr and Waterman, 33). Bad men stood up for the African American community, they were tough and confronted and overcame their obstacles. “The bad man in black folklore did provide emotional catharsis, an understandable reaction to racism, but they also offered hard lessons about the effects of violence within African American communities” (Starr and Waterman, 33). It provided a character that showed that African Americans could survive and come out victorious.…
In today's society, people are selfish and don't do anything unless it benefits themselves in one way or another. The reason why I like a good monster story is because they are based on our everyday society. All of the stories we have gone over this far throughout the year are for the most part have some connection with the real world. Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein, and serial killers are all monsters that have a special connection to everyday society.…
Most books and movies are based off of ancient mythological stories. The book “The Maze Runner” was based off of the Theseus and Minotaur story. There are many similarities in both of these stories. Even with all of these similarities they are not exactly the same.…