Character Analysis: Fist Stick Knife Gun

Geoffrey Canada does an excellent job of bringing his readers to the streets of the South Bronx and making them understand the culture and code of growing up in a poor, New York City neighborhood in the ‘50s and ‘60s. In his book, Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun, Canada details, through his own childhood experiences, the progression of violence in poverty plagued neighborhoods across America over the last 50 years. From learning to be “brave” by being forced to fight his best friend on a sidewalk at six-years-old, to staring down an enraged, knife wielding, “outsider” with nothing to defend himself but nerve, Canada explains the nightmare of fear that tens of thousands of children live through every day growing up in poor neighborhoods.

Savagery is a influencing, evil force that challenges the purity of mankind, and is underestimated by its true strength. Golding plays with the concept of human nature in the plot of Lord of the Flies by having a group of boys getting marooned on a deserted island with no adults, forcing them to strategize and work together in order to survive. Chapter 9 especially highlights the major themes that Golding is trying to convey in his book. While Simon uncovers the true identity of the beast, the other boys have a feast, where they eat pig and enact tribal dances. Simon finally arrives only to be mistaken as the Beast, and is murdered in cold sight. Chapter 9 is a morbid section of the novel, as it goes into deep description of their cruel actions

Scott Monks introduces the reader to his book about boys and gangs, growing up in an area

Society as a whole, learns from each other, and adapt to the norms around us. In this case, the uncivilized environment the boys’ were forced to inhabit, enable them as well as taught them to act viciously, which eventually encouraged the other to do so as well. Without a civilized environment, most people would not be able to control the evil that naturally lies within human kind from

Many boys grow up to be just like their fathers, and we are still living like we were in the 1950’s. In the short story, How Boys Become Men, Katz explains what it was like to grow up in the 1990’s and how growing up molds boys into being a man. Throughout the story he shows many examples of events that happened through his life that molded him into a man that he is today. Many boys go through life with things happening like in Katz’s life. Katz says that specific events lead to how boys grow into how many really are, they solve issues with physical violence, barely any emotional response, and having to act strong.

In the book The Outsiders, written by S.E. Hinton, a young “greaser” named Ponyboy learns, through brutal clashes with the Socs, the harsh reality of violence. The book focuses on Ponyboy and his gang’s battle with the richer class Socs, and the various effects. Many of these run-ins lead to horrific consequences, such as bad injuries and even death. The three topics addressed in the thought-provoking novel are the fight between rich and poor, what it means to be a hero, and the power of friendship.

I chose to write my Response Essay on the story "Sonny's Blues" written by James Baldwin. In Sonny's Blues, the storyteller recounts the tale of his association with his sibling, Sonny. Sonny is a performer not able to get away from the ghetto. Disheartened by his sibling's suffering , the storyteller connects with him, yet discovers that Sonny's hurt powers his music. The narrator is a teacher in Harlem that has changed his life and got out of the ghetto where he grew up. He sees African American youths finding the points of confinement put on them by a supremacist society at the exact instant when they are finding their capacities. The narrator talks about his association with his more youthful sibling, Sonny. That relationship has traveled

John Singleton’s film, Boyz N the Hood, displays the challenging upbringing of adolescents who have to live with harsh conditions around not only their home but also their surrounding town. The film compares the differences between the lifestyles of Tre Styles and his friends’, Darren and Ricky Baker. Darren and Ricky are half-brothers who are nothing alike. Singleton demonstrates the importance of male leadership in a home in the ghetto of Los Angeles by comparing the difference between the lifestyles of Tre and his friends. While many adolescents in the hood have close friendships, some form close relationships by assembling gangs and create a world of violence due to alcohol abuse, which together ultimately breeds discrimination.

The book Fist Stick Knife Gun by Geoffrey Canada is a memoir of his early childhood in the slums of south Bronx. Geoffrey’s single mother did the best she could with the little she had to raise him and his four older brothers. She provided them with street knowledge that would later help them survive and not be victims even in the most violent areas of the south Bronx. Geoffrey and his brothers would go on to move from place to place with their mother until they finally settled on Union Avenue, the area where they would spend most of their childhood growing up. Union Avenue became their school of life, there they learned everything they needed to know in order to survive in the ghetto. Geoffrey became strong enough mentally and physically to

Violence doesn’t always lead to bad things. Fist,Stick,Knife,Gun by Geoffrey Canada is about how violence in South Bronx, New York. It tells us how violence had became more deadly and dangerous in New York and how he had to deal with it. Soon he became aware of it and decided to help make a change in his community. Geoffrey Canada’s main message for the story is that the effects of violence on someone’s life can influence them to make change in their community.

Fist Stick Knife Gun By: A Personal History of Violence is a well written memoir by Geoffrey Canada. Canada informs his readers his story of growing up in the South Bronx, and how violence was a constant fact of life. He explains how violence is instilled in children from a very young age, and he uses this to explain how our culture needs to change so children don't have to experience the things he saw and went through. Throughout his book, Canada describes the combination of the weapons kids have access to and what parents teach their kids about violence as “America’s war against itself.” From his “dangerous” childhood to his teenage years Canada makes it obvious that the environment of which he was raised forever impacted his future and his

In the future city of Seattle Washington lived a fifteen year old boy named Ponky. Ponky was a Spanish boy always had a dirty look even though everybody in the town liked him. He always wore cargo shorts and a tank top with his gang’s bandana on his head. Ponky lived with his brother and gang in a house that they bought together with money that they stole from the city or that they earned at work, which was robbing or theft. Ponky lived in the poor side of the city or basically in a town with small brick buildings and trash all over the streets it was basically home of the criminals or the no good people, as said by the mayor that started the whole poor criminals on one side and the rich people on the other. The side was called the secton.

Over the course of numerous years, minority groups, specifically African Americans and Latinos, have been subjected to racial profiling. The United States built this country with slavery being normal. They treated colored people as animals. When slavery finally ended, a new era of segregation and discrimination came about. The colored people didn’t have the same privileges as Whites. Once segregation came to an end, discrimination still remained and racism became prominent. Ever since then, there have been unconstitutional encounters with the police. These events were mainly directed towards minority groups. Even today, there are still encounters that are categorized as police brutality. There have been a countless number of reports of police

A group of boys from Britain are being flown on a plane out of their country because a raging war has erupted and it was no longer safe. As they are flying the plane is shot down in the midst of the war and the boys go crashing down onto a deserted tropical island. The boys regather themselves and realized the situation that they were in. The boys quickly pick a leader and it is a character named ralph, as the story goes on there are many challenges the little group of boys face. Golding demonstrates the theme that we need civilization to tame the savage within us all in a variety of ways throughout the novel. While waiting to be rescued, the boys show how mankind needs civilization in order to tame the beast that lives inside of us all.

Throughout one’s life, one tends to adapt to the traditions of their family, and gain a significant bond with their loved ones, including their siblings. However, that connection a person gains can either be diminished or forgotten due to a sense of different mindsets between family members. The two stories “The Rich Brother” by Tobias Wolff and “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin indicate that sibling rivalry occurs when each member does not understand or acknowledge their sibling’s perspective, and this builds a wall barrier between the siblings.