The Reservation

        Personally, I find it difficult to compare my life to Junior's because we come from two completely different places. Junior comes from a home land that constantly holds him back in every way, and I am fortunate enough to live in one of the better neighborhoods in Chicago. On Juniors reservation, there are a lack of opportunities and the hope of almost everyone living there has been depleted. On top of Junior having a lack of opportunities to begin with, he was also born with "water on the brain" which only adds to his unfortunate struggle.
        Even though Junior's background and mine are pretty different, I can still relate to him in a couple ways. I think it's fair to say that every student at whitney young had to go through a lot to get into the school. It took a lot of testing, getting good grades, and hope to get into one of the top high schools in the city. Along the journey of trying to get into a top tier high school, many people lost hope due to the fact that there were so many people competing for so few spots. In a way this is similar to the reservation that Junior was living on. There were so few jobs and so little chances for success on the reservation that people gave up before they even put in the effort. Many people did not even make an effort to get into a selective prep high school because they had no hope they would get into one. Every kid that attends whitney young, just like Junior, was at one point determined to do what was best for them, and with a lot of effort and hope got into the school.
        Finally, living in Chicago there are a lot of aspects that can hold many people back from achieving success. Some of the bad neighborhoods lying on the south side of Chicago are just like the reservation in that they are struck with violence and poverty which can attribute to a loss of hope. Many people living in these neighborhoods give up because there are only so many opportunities for success that sometimes it may seem impossible to achieve. It's a very sad thing to witness and nobody deserves to have any less of a chance at succeeding in life, but with determination, there are always people who can find a way to beat the odds, just like Junior.  

Native Son

      I would like to start off by saying, by the end of book three, I was a fan of Native Non, however, up until that point, I was not. The reason I say this is because personally, I found the plot of both books one and two, fairly predictable. In book one, the main character Bigger is introduced and a majority of the book is dedicated to giving perspective on his life and his fears. When Bigger gets his first job working for the Dalton family, Richard Wright makes it very apparent that Bigger has some pretty negative mixed feelings about working for a white family. This made it very easy to predict something bad would happen. Although what did happen was quite a shock, I was not completely unprepared for it.
      Book two was rather similar to book one in my opinion. Book two is primarily about Bigger being on the run and trying to get away with his crime of murdering Mary Dalton (on accident). Much like book one, in book two things slowly got more and more irrational and chaotic until something bad happened, Bigger got arrested. Just like book one, I was shocked by some of the events that happened, but again, I wasn't unprepared for them. In summary, in book one and two I could sense something bad was going to happen all along, and therefore I was waiting for it through the entire reading, which made the two books rather unenjoyable for me.
      On the bright side, my opinion on Native Son completely changed in book three. Not only was book three completely unpredictable (for me at least), but it was extremely insightful on just how cruel racism was, and still is today. Max, Bigger's lawyer, towards the end of book three gave a speech that really stood out to me. He said that Bigger could not have been sentenced to death because his existence was not even recognized. He also said jail would be a better option for Bigger considering he would at least have an identity there. I found those two points in particular to be extremely heart breaking, and because of that I finally started to get a better perspective on just how much segregation effected African-American people. On top of all, I really enjoyed the ups and downs, the heart breaks and the triumphs, and the ending (although very disappointing, I feel the book would not be the same if it ended differently) of book three.