Literary Elements
Themes
The Prominence of Race Relations
Melba is born into a segregated society, in which black people lack the basic rights given to white people. In Melba’s narrative, this is a system more or less acknowledged by both white and black people.
The Shifting of Power Through Resistance
In the segregated South, white people had power and black people did not. The small act of defiance of nine black children entering an all-white school took on such significance because it threatened to change the way white segregationists wielded their power. Melba’s story makes clear that the power of whites lie, to some extent, in the consent of the black people.
Melba is born into a segregated society, in which black people lack the basic rights given to white people. In Melba’s narrative, this is a system more or less acknowledged by both white and black people.
The Shifting of Power Through Resistance
In the segregated South, white people had power and black people did not. The small act of defiance of nine black children entering an all-white school took on such significance because it threatened to change the way white segregationists wielded their power. Melba’s story makes clear that the power of whites lie, to some extent, in the consent of the black people.
Symbols
Central High School
Central High School symbolizes not just a good education but also the barriers to education that Melba and the other black students have to go through. All of this is very different from Melba’s original high school, Horace Mann. Melba’s interactions with Central High School also represent the curiosity and spirit that make it possible for her to survive her first year there.
Melba’s Easter Dress
The dress symbolizes Melba’s difficult trip from a high-school girl to an adult warrior for justice and is a reward for her work. Melba had hoped to use her dress as protection
against the cruelty and solitude she experiences at Central High School, but it does not work.
Journalists
Journalists are always present in Melba’s story. One of the two white people who save Elizabeth Eckford is a journalist, and several black journalists are beaten by
the crowd that surrounds Central High School on the first day of school the Little Rock Nine attend. While at Central High School, Melba converses with journalists and realizes she could continue to fight for truth and justice as a career and that she could do it with words.
Central High School symbolizes not just a good education but also the barriers to education that Melba and the other black students have to go through. All of this is very different from Melba’s original high school, Horace Mann. Melba’s interactions with Central High School also represent the curiosity and spirit that make it possible for her to survive her first year there.
Melba’s Easter Dress
The dress symbolizes Melba’s difficult trip from a high-school girl to an adult warrior for justice and is a reward for her work. Melba had hoped to use her dress as protection
against the cruelty and solitude she experiences at Central High School, but it does not work.
Journalists
Journalists are always present in Melba’s story. One of the two white people who save Elizabeth Eckford is a journalist, and several black journalists are beaten by
the crowd that surrounds Central High School on the first day of school the Little Rock Nine attend. While at Central High School, Melba converses with journalists and realizes she could continue to fight for truth and justice as a career and that she could do it with words.
Similies
"Like sardines we wiggled and pushed trying to forge a pathway."
Beals uses this literary device to show how crammed in the elevator they were, like sardines.
"It was like entering a darkened movie theater amid the rush of a crowd eager to get seated before the picture begins."
This is when Melba is going into Central High School for the first time. Beals uses this to relate the atmosphere of a movie
theater to the highschool.
Beals uses this literary device to show how crammed in the elevator they were, like sardines.
"It was like entering a darkened movie theater amid the rush of a crowd eager to get seated before the picture begins."
This is when Melba is going into Central High School for the first time. Beals uses this to relate the atmosphere of a movie
theater to the highschool.
Foreshadowing
Pg.192 - "Yeah, but it's gonna get much worse."
Pg.198 - "Without that job..."
Pg.198 - "Without that job..."
irony
Verbal Irony, pg.137 - "Do you kids want white meat or dark meat?" "This is an integrated turkey."
Author's purpose
The author's purpose of writing this book was to inform you on her expieriences at Little Rock Central High and the effects of integration of schools as a result of the Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka.
Point of view
The Point of View of the story is told in is First-Person.
Alliteration
Pg.12 - "freeze frame forever"
Hyperbole
Pg.12 - "forever preserved in my mind"
Idiom
Pg.122 - "I was making mountains out of molehills."