The American Experience Portrayed In Staples Literature Works - Essay Example

The American Experience Portrayed In Staples’ Work Staples’ book contains the elements of race, sordidness and violence that typically characterize black life and these are exemplified through the events that occur in the lives of his family members, notably in the death of his brother, a drug dealer, at the hands of rivals. But the American dream is still in reach, even for members of the black community and final outcomes lie only in luck and individual decisions and choices. The experience of the black community is not the “other’ experience, rather it is the result of much the same elements that guide other lives – individual will and the element of luck. The imagery used in the book also contributes to the character. When the author first sees the pictures of his dead brother on the coroner’s table, “the floor gave way and I fell down and down for miles” (Staples 8). For example, in describing the widow’s peak on his brother’s forehead, the author states that it is “an inverted pyramid; it begins high above the temples and falls into an apex in the boxy forehead, over the heart shaped face. A triangle into a box over a heart” (Staples, 3). The brother’s wound is referred to as a “mouth whose lips are pouting and bloody.” (Staples,3). In then describing the emergency sewing up of the wound, the author describes the surgeon’s reaction, stating that he “wept at the savagery and the waste” (Staples, 4). This imagery is the symbolic representation of the story of the brother’s life which unfolds in the book. The very same wounds and the sewing up which the author first describes with so much imagery, almost feeling his brother’s pain and agony if he had been alive is later described as it appears in the coroner’s report and “the surgical incision and its grisly clamps are dismissed in a single sentence.” (Staples, 6-7). This is the result of the life that the author’s brother had to lead as a part of the drug world. These dangers are very clear to the author when he meets his brother six months before his death, because “the signs of death were everywhere; his name was hot in the street” (Staples 7). However, the notable aspect of the book is its tone, which does not choose to victimize the brother as a member of the black community; rather the author presents his brother’s fate as the result of the choices and decisions he had made during his life. For example, the author states that despite his serious warning that he would die, his brother Blake chose to respond to the alarm by talking about how he had escaped on previous occasions instead and “made asses of the police” (Staples 8). As opposed to this, the author himself chose differently in his life - despite having failed to take the SAT because he so much despaired of his chances of ever going to college, he nevertheless seized the opportunity to do so when the opportunity arose, gathering a PhD from the University of Chicago and going on to become a journalist. Hence, the contrast between the brothers’ lives emerges as not necessarily being the result of victimization of the black community but rather, the result of the choices they had made. This is also the case with other members of his family – when the choices that have been made are bad ones, the siblings are forced to bear the consequences of those choices. The author does not take the easy way out and place the blame for these events on the white man and his prejudice and oppression. For example, the author states that after his brother’s death, he “skipped the funeral and avoided Roanoke for the next three years” (Staples 8). When he later returns and visits the Commonwealth attorney, he points out that the man is somewhat impatient with questions, however the reason for this is the clearly discernable reason for the death, over which there is no dispute. In the tone used throughout the book, the author is careful to be non judgmental. His delay in returning to Roanoke itself shows his awareness of the culpability of his brother in the ultimate fate that awaited him – the author feels that he has “already mourned Blake and buried him and was determined not to suffer his death a second time” (Staples 8). The author has not tried to avoid or skirt around the issue of violence and lack of education which is associated with the black community. For instance when his professor Sparrow suggests he go to college: “I felt it my duty to aggravate Sparrow. I was painfully aware that he’d saved my life….I hid my gratitude and played hard ass (Staples, 186). His attitude matches the prevailing don’t-care attitude among the black community in which there is an underlying element of desperation, the characterization portrays the typical young black male. Yet the author does not fail to note that the anonymous white man as exemplified in Sparrow, is in fact responsible for his salvation from the inevitable fate of drug dealing that would have awaited him. The characterization of the author as “hearing the Gospel song, “Amazing Grace” (Staples 186) symbolizes the difference in his attitude which sets him apart and changes his ultimate fate. Throughout the story, the author’s tone remains balanced and non judgmental. As he compares the stories he studies with the events occurring in real life, he is careful to portray them as events that are the result of fate, chance and individual decisions, as for example in the murder of a white student by two black men. He does not dwell upon the racial element inherent in such events, yet does not ignore them either. He points out the nature of questions posed to him when he interviews for reporter positions, especially with the Washington Post, where there is genuine curiosity about how he, as a black man, has turned out to be law abiding when arising out a community that is largely relegated to jails, morgues and homeless shelters. The book is thus notable in that it presents an American life, rather than the life of a black man struggling in a white supremacist society. In highlighting how two brothers from the same family van grow up so differently, he emphasizes the underlying message that this is the result of luck and individual will – a factor which applies in every individual’s life, irrespective of his or her race. The black experience is thus presented, not as the “other” experience which face sits own set of challenges, rather the individual black man’s experience is much the same as every American experience, with the outcomes largely dependent upon the individual will and the element of luck. Work cited: * Staples, Brent, 1994. “Parallel Time: Growing up in black and white” , Pantheon Books. Read More