Monster was definitely an interesting read but I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. The entire book seemed to be preaching how unfair the system is, but in the end, the system worked so the message remains unclear for me.
Steve is a good kid - that much we know. Seeing the story through his creative lens gave us an immediate bias because we feel for him and don’t want him to be in the situation he’s in. Of course it’s a travesty that he’s there in the first place and for that I think we’re justified in our feelings toward the system the story evokes; however, the fact he is found not guilty confuses some of what I think Walter Dean Myers is trying to say. Perhaps we have to look past the obvious and explore other avenues. Maybe what he wants us to understand isn’t really about the system specifically but the affects that racism is having on our youth. Is society setting them up for failure?
I think the title “Monster” embodies the heartbreaking theme surrounding the book. I found one of the last scenes, the attempted hug between Steve and his attorney, Ms. O’Brien, particularly disturbing. This scene paints a picture that represented the main point of the book and that is not whether the system works or not, but the fluid impressionable young man we see and affects that the system and society as a whole has on him and others like him. When he’s told he’s a “monster” throughout the whole trial, and then his own attorney, the one who is supposed to be defending him, won’t hug him, what is he supposed to think of himself? To me, this is the real point Myers was trying to drive home. Even if Steve is not spending his remaining youth in the detention center, our racism problem is far from over and I think this illustrates how sad it is that a young boy would think of himself as anything but great because our society makes him feel that way.
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