SUMMARY
The protagonist in the story of Manchild In The Promised Land is a thirteen year old boy. The thirteen year old boy was hanging out with his bad friends and got shot. The protagonist thought that he was going to die from a bullet that hit him right in one of his legs. The protagonist ran into a fish-and-chips joint, and the owner of the joint said ‘’ git outta here, kid. I ain’t got no time to play’’ (Brown, 9), and pushed him down on to the ground. After hours the protagonist was sent to the hospital, where he had so many bad dreams. After eleven day, the thirteen year old was released from the hospital and went to a convalescent home in Valhalla. About after three years after living in Valhalla, an activity director told him that he had to see a judge. The judge sent him to an all boy’s school, hoping that he would be a better boy when he came out. The protagonist is a very bad boy. The teenager didn’t want to go to an all boy’s school, so one day the protagonist woke up screaming, and banging on the wall for two days, the third day he was sent to Bellevue for observation. By the time the judge was ready to send the teenager to Warwick , they had a full house, so the judge sent him home for two weeks. The protagonist is so bad, and still is alive. The protagonist was hit by a car, hit by a bus, and set a house afire. In the following pages the protagonist talks about things in his life that may have been new and some thing that weren’t. One thing that wasn’t new was that the protagonist went out to stores and rob the store of all the money that it had. One thing that wasn’t new is that the protagonist went to church for the first time, and when everyone else was putting in money that they had, the protagonist didn’t put in the only dime that he had, which wasn’t a surprise to his siblings. The protagonist experiences life as he hangs out with his friends. The thirteen year old boy’s aunt came to Harlem from the south to visit them. After the aunt and the mother of the thirteen year old talked, about how bad the protagonist is, the mother tells the protagonist is going to spend time with his aunt in the south.
QUOTE
‘’ yeah, sumpin is sho wrong with that boy, but I don’ think he’s crazy or nothin’ like that, ‘cause he got a whole lotta sense when it comes to gittin’ in trouble. And when I stop to think about it, I don’t believe nobody worked no roots on him, ‘cause he got too much devil in him to be tricked by them root workers. But what coulda happen is that he went someplace and sassed some old person, and that old person put the bad mouth on him. Yeah, more’n likely that’s what happened to him, ‘cause he always sassing old people. I beat him and keep tellin’ him not to talk back to people with gray hair, but that little devilish nigger got a head on him like rock. Lord, I don’t know what to do with that boy. I just hope pimp don’t never git that bad.’’ (Brown, 9)
REACTION
I like this quote, because it tells you that this child is so bad, that even the child’s mother doesn’t even know what to do with him. Usually from my perspective, I noticed that bad kids don’t have a lot of sense, and that’s the reason for their behavior. This quote proved me wrong, allowing me to see that my stereotype is wrong, and that just because a child is bad, they don’t have to be stupid, and that they could have sense. I surprised just like the mother when she said that she couldn’t believe that no one has worked roots on him yet. At first when I read this quote to myself I asked myself what does roots mean in this quote? I read the quote again to myself and realized that it meant talked back, or even smacked him. I was always told that I shouldn’t talk back, or act bad towards seasoned people, and I’m surprise no one smacked the protagonist, because he is so bad. Pimp is the brother of the thirteen year old boy. I liked how the mother said that she hopes pimp wouldn’t get that bad, because I’m hoping the same thing to for him.
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