The beginning of the story seemed somewhat slow, and literally put me to sleep last night. However, as I read this morning, the story started to develop into something more interesting and enveloping.
I do feel this story, being a short story, could have come to its point a little bit quicker, but the attention to detail the author provided was important to his or her point.
The overall message I found dominant was love for family, mainly that of brothers. However, the story also touched on drug addictions, the struggle black people experienced at the time, as well as loss of innocence.
For some of the story when the author was talking about the kids in the schoolyard, it made me reminisce of Holden from “The Catcher in the Rye.” The narrator could did not want to face that the kids in the school could possibly be using drugs, he did not want to face that his younger brother had been using drugs. And when he was driving past the projects, the symbolism of light and dark the narrator was using to describe the souls lost to the evil present in that environment, also seemed to reflect straying away from the light, and losing what is good inside oneself.
I can totally agree with you that the first time I read this story it was super slow and extremely boring, but after reading it the second time it brought out the details and I found important stuff that I missed the first time through. I found it interesting that you didn’t relate this short story to your life but you related it to another story (more like a novel) that has a similar experience. The connection that you explained about “The Catcher in the Rye” really made me think about how the two writings are alike, and how I’m sure many people, or even teachers in particular, are having to deal with this on a regular basis.
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