Leaving the Reservation

     In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior decides to leave his native reservation and go to school at Reardan, an all white school in Spokane. Junior escapes from the poverty and depression of the reservation in an effort to find hope. While I am not a Native American held back by the suffering of my people, I too have had to break free of a reservation in my life.
     From pre-kindergarden to eight grade I went to school at Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School. I spent eleven years at BZAEDS, and I received an amazing education, built strong friendships, and had a safe and controlled learning environment. Despite all that I got from BZAEDS, there are many things that I was unexposed to. For example, at a school where every single student was white and Jewish, I had no experience with diversity. Most students shared similar views and opinions, and I had no preparation surrounding someone who would challenge the ideals that I lived eleven years of my life around. Also, everybody at BZAEDS wants the students to succeed. Teachers go out of their way to help students before students ask for help, taking away from their self advocacy. Not only did I get less experience advocating for myself, but I was sheltered from facing true academic difficulty and hardship. My years at BZAEDS were an incredible experience that provided me with countless important lessons. However, it also kept me in a bubble that blocked crucial experiences from getting to me. 
     Luckily for me, BZAEDS is not a high school, and after getting into Whitney Young I had my eyes opened to the things I was missing out on. However a few of my friends from BZAEDS went to other private schools instead of CPS schools. Seven out of the forty-two kids in my grade returned to a life of shelter and bubbles, blocked from real world experiences. I was fortunate enough to be able to escape from my reservation with help from the citizens themselves, but some of my peers just wondered on to the next one. 

Native Son

     Toward the middle of book three in Richard Wright's Native Son, Bigger Thomas is sent to trial for murdering Mary Dalton. During the trial, Bigger's lawyer, Max, a worker for the labor defenders and in support of the Communists, gives a speech about the situation at hand. Max argues that Bigger did indeed murder Mary Dalton, however there is a larger picture, and the trial is bigger than Bigger.
     In his speech, Max presents information surrounding the reason as to why Bigger committed the crime. He says that Bigger was forced into this situation by the white people who control society. Max states that the African Americans have no freedom, they are forced onto the same miserable path of poverty and or crime. Bigger is a victim of this system, Max argues, and Bigger had no other options in Mary's room that terrible evening, he was either to be tried then, or weeks later. In fact Bigger had already committed murder before he actually killed anybody, due to the assumptions and stereotypes of the white people. Max concludes his argument by saying that the reason white people are mad at Bigger is because they are mad at themselves for making it happen.
     Max's testimony brings many themes up to the spotlight. While everybody can certainly agree that African Americans have and always had been restricted by the white people in America and elsewhere, Max takes this one step further, arguing that it wasn't the whites restriction that caused the murder, it was the whites themselves. Regardless if the validity of Max's argument, Bigger was convicted and sentenced to death. But had his trial been real, maybe it would've brought some of these topics to light.

Green Lights, Yellow Cars, and Church Steeples

        On the surface, the Great Gatsby is an entertaining novel demonstrating the luxurious and interesting lives of five connected people spending the summer on Long Island, NY. If this were the real Great Gatsby, the green light would be a simple port side market, the yellow car would be Gatsby's expensive way of transportation, and Nick's comparison to Kant would be a way of demonstrating the fact that nick was thinking about something. This was not F. Scott Fitzgerald's intentions with the Great Gatsby, however, and the book is more than an simple pleasure read.
        F. Scott Fitzgerald's unique writing style supplies the reader with innuendos instead of statements. This innuendos are only clues to the larger picture as a way for the reader to greater interprete the story. Subtle things such as the image of Gatsby reaching for the green light represent much larger things and in this case it shows Gatsby's reach for Daisy, his long lost love, the only connection to her being the light. Some readers may not understand these hints, but Fitgerald still gives the reader an entertaining story to follow. But for those who can connect the larger meaning, the book becomes an incredible representation and comment on the society of the 1920's.
         Fitzgerald's use of individual words in particular can supply the reader with a completely different idea of the story. Had Fitzgerald used the word privileges instead of advantages, the reader wouldn't have been able to understand the higher class nature of Nick's childhood. The Great Gatsby is not only a brilliant work of the early 20th century, but a large connection of smaller hints in order to both intrigue and compel the reader.