The name of the book, The Hate U Give, comes from an explanation of the tattoo and record album from the late(?) rapper Tupac Shakir. In a first-person narrative like The Hate U Give, the reader becomes Starr, no matter who they might be in real life. Reality is always more complicated and subject to implicit and explicit bias. In many ways, fiction is more effective at conveying a real-life experience than the truth. The 'ripped from the headlines' nature of this subject allows Angie Thomas to use fiction to tackle a real-life problem. Real Eyes Realize Real Lies: Tupac in The Hate U Give In turn, the media embraces this story because it is the narrative they have come to expect. The officer who kills Starr’s friend Khalil perceived him as a threat because of his race and appearance. In the novel, the perception of identity is also questioned.
#The hate you give thug life quote full#
Like Calpurnia in To Kill a Mockingbird, she code-switches when when she is around her white Williamson Prep friends, but she also doesn’t feel like a full member of her Black neighborhood. As a person stranded between worlds-Black and white, rich and poor-Starr struggles to fit in. In Starr’s case, her desire is to be her authentic self in the face of societal expectations and stereotypes. However, for the character to work as a person, that universal theme must take on more specificity. The Hate U Give deals with a universal theme: identity. She vows to fight for equality, undoing the cycle of violence. Unlike Jean Louise in Go Set a Watchman, Starr doesn’t accept the flawed realities of gang violence or police brutality. Throughout the novel, she learns to stand up, both to the systemic racism in society and to the cyclic gang violence overrunning her neighborhood. Starr straddles the world of her Black neighborhood and the upper-class white school she attends. She is personally affected by his death and knows that what happened to Khalil could have easily happened to her or her brothers or her father. Starr Carter is the only witness to the shooting of her friend. On the other hand, in The Hate U Give, the novel is entirely centered on the experiences of Black characters. And despite Atticus harboring racist views and opposing desegregation, Scout, now going by her real name Jean Louise, ends the novel telling her father that she loves him. In this later novel, it is revealed that Atticus Finch was never a hero, but only doing his job as a defense attorney. This lack of personal involvement can be further seen in To Kill a Mockingbird’s sequel, Go Set a Watchman. Other subplots include spying on a mysterious neighbor-Arthur “Boo” Radley, a neighborhood fire, and receiving rifles for Christmas.
#The hate you give thug life quote trial#
In fact, the trial is only one of many subplots in the novel. Other than a few arguments with friends, relatives, and neighbors, the events of the rape case do not affect the Finch family. Calpurnia employs code-switching to speak differently when she is at her Black church.Ītticus Finch stands out as a noble white savior, and despite not changing the minds of the all-white jury, receives the respect of the Black community because he deigned to treat a Black man like a person worthy of defense. Their only real connection to the Black community is their maid, Calpurnia, who Scout discovers leads something of a double life. The characters in To Kill a Mockingbird only glimpse the racism surrounding them once Atticus takes on the case of Tom Robinson, the man falsely accused of rape. Instead of seeing the story through the eyes of Scout Finch, the young girl narrating To Kill a Mockingbird, we see The Hate U Give from the perspective of Starr, who is both older and more world-weary than Scout.īecause Scout is white, she centers To Kill a Mockingbird, not on the Black characters in her setting, but on her father, who is defending a Black man from the charge of rape. They both hit some of the same narrative beats, culminating with a miscarriage of justice because of the inherent racism in American society.īut, of course, these two novels are different because of the narrators. The Hate U Give and To Kill a Mockingbird have many similarities. My first impression of this novel was that it reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird.
0 kommentar(er)
