Bud, Not Buddy Critical Lens Literary Analysis Essay “During the Great Depression, African Americans were faced with problems that were not unlike those experienced by the most disadvantaged groups in society. The Great Depression had a leveling effect, and all groups really experienced hard times: poor whites, poor blacks”- William Julius Wilson. This quote relates to the Great Depression in 1929-1939, when whites and blacks were discriminated. They would usually live in cardboard houses called Hoovervilles, with no jobs or money. A Hooverville is a major setting in an award winning novel called Bud, Not Buddy. In the 1999 novel, Bud, Not Buddy, where Christopher Paul Curtis introduces readers to the main character, ten-year-old, Bud Caldwell, …show more content…
The Great Depression had a leveling effect, and all groups really experienced hard times: poor whites, poor blacks”- William Julius Wilson. This quote relates to the Great Depression in 1929-1939, when whites and blacks were discriminated. They would usually live in cardboard houses called Hoovervilles, with no jobs or money. A Hooverville is a major setting in an award winning novel called Bud, Not Buddy. In the 1999 novel, Bud, Not Buddy, where Christopher Paul Curtis introduces readers to the main character, ten-year-old, Bud Caldwell, who has a very challenging life. Bud has a difficult start in life, with no idea who his father is, and at the tender age of six, he loses his mom. Bud lives in a group home for a time, and bounces around several foster homes before he takes off in search of his dad. Along the way, he ends up in a Hooverville to get food and to catch a train that leads him to California with his friend Bugs. Unfortunately he misses the train, but uses his enthusiasm to create “Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself.” He leads himself into successions with his optimism, which makes him thrive in