ipl-logo

Deshawn Downfall

762 Words4 Pages

DeShawn’s Downfall Have you ever been stuck somewhere and couldn’t change anything about it? Or forced to choose between two bad things? Sometimes life is unfair and from the beginning a person can be placed in an environment where they haven’t even been given a chance. In the play, “Mr. Joy,” by David Beaty, this is exactly what happens to DeShawn, a young black boy growing up in Harlem. DeShawn is forced to confront the violence in his community, putting him under immense pressure and ultimately affecting those around him in ways he never saw coming. In the play DeShawn is faced with gangs and violence in his community. Growing up in Harlem with his experiences forced Deshawn to believe he needed to join the problem because it was an obstacle he couldn’t overcome. Joining a gang had an impact on Deshawn, his family and his community. He transforms into someone he is not and ends up hopelessly sucked into the toxic environment around him. In the beginning DeShawn is introduced as a upbeat young boy who …show more content…

DeShawn is on his own after witnessing his friend die. He can’t trust anyone around him. By choosing the gang life he changes into a boy he is not. He goes to rob Mr. Joy as a part of his initiation. DeShawn says, “For my initiation they tell me I have to rob somebody. I ain’t never committed a crime in my life, but I can’t come across as soft, that’s death in the belly of the Beast, then I’m like yo’, I should rob Mr. Joy’s shop...And I panic and I grab the nearest thing I can see- I grab this heel with a sharp spike and I start beating him with it, And I can’t stop, I don’t want to stop (Beaty 40-41).” DeShawn never wanted to become something bad, he never wanted to hurt anyone. DeShawn had joined the gang in hopes of helping protect his loved ones but once he took the first step into the toxic environment outside, DeShawn fell off the

Show More
Related
1265 Words | 6 Pages

John Singleton’s film, Boyz N the Hood, displays the challenging upbringing of adolescents who have to live with harsh conditions around not only their home but also their surrounding town. The film compares the differences between the lifestyles of Tre Styles and his friends’, Darren and Ricky Baker. Darren and Ricky are half-brothers who are nothing alike. Singleton demonstrates the importance of male leadership in a home in the ghetto of Los Angeles by comparing the difference between the lifestyles of Tre and his friends. While many adolescents in the hood have close friendships, some form close relationships by assembling gangs and create a world of violence due to alcohol abuse, which together ultimately breeds discrimination.

Read More
71 Words | 1 Pages

Jonathan Wayne Nobles wanted power, to be the dominant one. He wanted to be in control. Starting before he committed murder, Nobles, a former neighborhood watch patrolman, who quit school after the eighth grade, turned to drugs and alcohol maybe as a reaction to beatings and abuse while growing up in a foster home. Nobles felt inferior to others, and this only made him want to be in control even more.

Read More
1770 Words | 8 Pages

Jeannette and her family are almost already the most poor family on the street. Because of this, Jeannette already doesn’t fit in the best around people and she didn’t want to be known as a “nigger lover” of the whole town. Throughout the town, there are two sides, people who like black people and talk to them or ones who don’t like them. There are two sides to

Read More
764 Words | 4 Pages

Even though his brother was too deep into drug and gang culture to escape, “[he] wanted Wes to be nothing like him” (72). Yet, Wes was consumed by the, “… same game that had consumed [his brother] and put a bullet or two in him,” and had never known anything in his family outside of drugs and gang violence, so drugs and gangs were the only expectation Wes had, the only place he saw himself fitting into (58). Ultimately, the expectations of those

Read More
922 Words | 4 Pages

As Johnny goes through this difficult stage in life he decides to run away not thinking about where he’s going to stay or how he’s going to get food. He decides to join a gang of orphans with his best friend Billy in order to survive. This novel is still widely read today because it provides an inhuman image of brutal conditions African Americans faced in Harlem of 1940’s. In the Rite of Passage, the main character Johnny is hit with some really bad news that his family that he’s been living with throughout his entire life is not really his own.

Read More
875 Words | 4 Pages

Studies have suggested that people are likely to increase their criminal activity after their first conviction. In Dallas' mind, he might as well act the way people expect him to act. Unfortunately, the conclusion of the The Outsiders ends by Dallas getting killed by the police. When Dallas learned about the death of his close friend Johnny he goes a mental breakdown and starts losing it. When walking into a local drug store Dallas robs the store with a unloaded gun and phones his gang to meet him at a local hangout.

Read More
1629 Words | 7 Pages

He found friends and began to blossom and this is where his journey began. Growing up cedric has always been around unwanted circumstances. Such as the thugs, gangbangers and anyone that was typically a threat or the opposite of what Cedric’s mother wanted him to be. Making it clear that, “Reaching out to any fellow ghetto kids is an act he put in the same category as doing drugs.” (18).

Read More
346 Words | 2 Pages

When the settlers of Europe first came to the new world, they were introduced to the Native Americans. The settlers wanted the Natives to follow their culture and its benefits such as education, religion, and the usage of the environment. The Native Americans refused the request, stating they have their own type of culture, believing it to be the most superior; as a result, the Natives’ statement angered the ethnocentric settlers. Consequently, this caused a conflict between the two groups because of their culture differences. Firstly, the main culture difference consists of religion, tradition, and way of living.

Read More
828 Words | 4 Pages

He sees African American youths finding the points of confinement put on them by a supremacist society at the exact instant when they are finding their capacities. The narrator talks about his association with his more youthful sibling, Sonny. That relationship has traveled

Read More
1121 Words | 5 Pages

The decision to attend a white school is a tough one and Junior understands that for him to survive and to ensure that his background does not stop him from attaining his dreams; he must battle the stereotypes regardless of the consequences. In this light, race and stereotypes only makes junior stronger in the end as evident on how he struggles to override the race and stereotypical expectations from his time at the reservation to his time at Rearden. How race and stereotypes made

Read More
560 Words | 3 Pages

During the time that the narrator began his work with the organization he successfully gave the people of Harlem the justice he believed they desired. During his time of success the narrator learns that his definition of justice is teaching the people how to unify together and work against their oppressors. Unfortunately the narrator’s stretch of justice was soon cut short. After upsetting some brotherhood members the narrator was shipped off to work in a different part of town.

Read More
550 Words | 3 Pages

In the play, they say that the defendant has lived in the ‘slum’ all his life. Five, one of the 12 men, also grew up in a bad neighborhood. Four says, “We're missing the point here. This boy—let's say he's a product of a filthy neighborhood and a broken home. We can't help that.

Read More
1319 Words | 6 Pages

Shaken after hearing he would be out on parole and no longer in Shawshank he resorts to violence, hoping that it would allow him to stay in Shawshank. Witnessed by his friends, they try to comprehend

Read More
483 Words | 2 Pages

Trevor’s struggle of letting go of his past to help better society for him and others demonstrates the internal conflict he has with himself as it is not easy for him to let go of something he once had. Lastly, as the gang is nearly finished with destroying the house’s interior, it has become something completely different than it once was revealing that “destruction after all is a

Read More
453 Words | 2 Pages

Him and his gang would do all sorts of Relates to the prompt because: he joined the gang so he didn’t feel lonely. By him joining the gang, his future was destroyed. An example about when my cousin lived in Colombia, she grew up in the middle/poor class. Many of the women there were prostitutes. They were very beautiful, had money, didn’t need an education.

Read More

More about Deshawn Downfall

Related Topics

Open Document