In The Belly of The Best by Jack Henry Abbott - Book Report/Review Example

Some of the harsh conditions that he faced during his stay at the prison was that he was beaten very badly at the prison. Abbott was humiliated in the prison and had to face all the harsh things of life. During his stay at the prison Abbot got into many fights which according to him were a response to the hard rationale system and a throw back at them. Once during a fight he killed an inmate which according to him he did for defending his life. But, in response to this he was sent to a blackout cell where no light could enter the cell and bugs everywhere.

Racism and social rejection which although had accompanied him throughout his life were there with him too. According to Abbott the US prison system has totally failed for the process of rehabilitation. According to him the prison system has only one purpose which is to destroy and devastate one’s sole and turn him into a full criminal. The strict rules and regulations, the racism in the prisons, the killings and the injustice in the prisons are just not sufficient for the process of rehabilitation and measures need to be taken if the aim has to be achieved.

Some of the punishments that Abbott received during his stay in the prison were betting beaten up by the guards and being sent to the blackout cell. A blackout cell is the one in which there is no room for the light to enter and one cannot even see his own hands. The darkness does not even allow seeing the steel toilet and the sink present in the cell which is mostly full of bugs. Abbott explains his punishments by writing this one line in one of the letters “My throat was blue with bruises” (Abbott In The Belly of the Beast) This all explains how cruel the punishments were the prison.

Abbott had a worse experience with the staff and other inmantes as explained previously. He was being beaten up by the both the guards and other stronger inmates. He even killed a guy in the prison in his own defense. He was being punished brutally for no reason. So, all the social rejection which he had been facing throughout his life was there to accompany him in the prison too. Abbott, after his experiences in the prison maybe comes to realize that it is not actually the society which has been wrong with him and rejected him but, it might be him who had been refusing to accept the society and been cruel and wrong with it.

So, the writer in the end tries to seek apology from the society for not accepting it and being the bad guy. Also, he seeks apology from all those persons with whom he had done wrong. According to my point of view, the writer Jack Henry Abbott has faced a lot in his life and if he comes to realize that he was the one to be on the wrong side in the end, it is the duty of the society to forgive him and give him a second chance to improve and prove that he has changed. As everyone deserves a second chance, the writer also deserves a chance to live a prosperous life again and live a life of a good person, not a criminal.

Work Cited Abbott, Jack H. In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison. New York: Random House, 1981.