Symbolism In Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Let kids be kids. This sentiment is often used to encourage adults to let children be carefree and do whatever they want. Children are told to enjoy their years as kids since they will never be able to regain the childlike innocence and naivete upon reaching full maturation. But sometimes, kids never have the chance to be kids. When children are placed in difficult situations, they have to grow up faster and take on more responsibility for themselves and for others. One thing that contributes heavily to these difficult situations is racism. Today, black children and children from other minorities often face prejudices against them, but historically speaking, the US is not unfamiliar with racial conflict, which made it hard for black children to just be kids. Mildred Taylor explored this idea in her book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, which tells the story of the Logan family, a poorer black family with four children and a father who has left to find work, trying to make ends meet in a white dominated world, through the eyes of an eight-year-old girl, Cassie. Through conflict, setting, symbolism, and point of view, Taylor shows that children are forced to grow up faster when they live in difficult situations, and that the existence of racism contributes to this. Taylor uses setting to illustrate that it is difficulty that forces children to grow up faster than they should have to. The story takes place in 1933 in the south, where the discrimination between blacks and whites