Darkness Before Dawn Analysis

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Sharon M. Draper is the author of this book, Darkness Before Dawn. The physical setting of this story is at Keisha’s school, Hazelwood High, in Atlanta, GA. The temporal setting is Keisha Montgomery’s senior year in high school. The author manipulates times by introducing the suicide of her ex-boyfriend, Andy Jackson, and goes back to where he was still alive. The setting is critical to the story, because the setting provided the framework for what is going on, and gives readers info to set mood. The tone is set as horrifying at first, dealing with Andy. Once it flashes back, the tone changes to calm, then heated, interesting, suspicious, and surprising. The theme is about teenage love (seniors and their relationships with each other) and friendships …show more content…

Keisha is a dynamic character because she undergoes dramatic change on the inside, such as the grief for her ex-boyfriend who committed suicide, and is trying to better positively influence her mind. The main antagonist is in this story is Jonathan Hathaway, the 23-year-old track coach. He tries to convince Keisha to have sex, and after she refuses, he attempts rape. I can now infer at this point in time, the antagonist is not in his right mind, considering the fact he attacks a girl where he is forced to move and also has a past of raping other young females. I could relate to a friend in the story, such as Rhonda, that has an insight, but can’t do anything but support her friend. In this story, Draper develops one storyline, with the central conflict being that Keisha has to get over the grief of her ex, but she falls out of love to fall back in, with a grown man, that over wins her heart and persuades her to defy her parents. Andy killing himself for guilt, Keisha looking for love, and her dealing with unstable feelings by falling for Coach Hathaway are three critical events that developed the storyline. Whenever Keisha was going through this, commonsense tells me that she wanted nothing but love. When the coach “happened” to be in the same places as the protagonist. From there I knew she would fall and things go downhill.