Essay On The Endless Trauma Of Nickel Boys

The Endless Damage of Trauma
The Dozier School for Boys is reported to have killed approximately 100 boys between 1900 and 1973 (NPR). Based on the true events at the Dozier School, Colson Whitehead's novel The Nickel Boys explores the concept of trauma. In the 1960s, Elwood, a well-mannered boy of color, is wrongly sent to a juvenile reformatory school called Nickel Academy. There, he must live through unfair and vicious regulations to survive. Elwood’s journey at Nickel reveals the intense trauma the boys face every day. To the outside world, Nickel is simply a school for misbehaving boys, but the boys at Nickel know the truth: Nickel has an outdated system built on violence, abuse of power, and racism. The boys of Nickel Academy are subjected

When Elwood faces physical abuse, his ethical mindset becomes obedient. After his beating, it is clear that Elwood was affected more than anticipated: “Elwood's beating at the White House had him scarred all over, not just his legs. It had weeviled deep into his personality. The way his shoulders sank when Spencer appeared, the flinch and shrink. He could only stand so much talk of revenge before reality grabbed a hold of him” (Whitehead 121-122). The imagery and description of Elwood’s mindset after the beating at the White House show that Nickel has injected fear into its students. The trauma has not only left changes on his body but also in his consciousness. A moral kid like Elwood has started to give in to fear even though all his life he has advocated for what is right. Furthermore, the personification of reality grabbing a hold of Elwood illustrates that Elwood’s ideas of a society being built off of logic and justice are irrelevant at Nickel. There, the students must choose between their dignity and their life. Later at Nickel, the Nickel boys learn they must tolerate the terror they are put through. By blindly obeying Nickel’s rules, the students were torn away from their free will: “The capacity to suffer. Elwood—all the Nickel boys— existed in the capacity. Breathed in it, ate in it, dreamed in it. That was their lives now. Otherwise they would have perished.

Turner soon realizes Nickel has destroyed the chances for the majority of its students to achieve bright futures. Turner reflects, “The boys could have been many things had they not been ruined by that place [...] but they have been denied even the simple pleasure of being ordinary. Hobbled and handicapped before the race even began, never figuring out how to be normal” (166). The two alliterative words “hobbled and handicapped” emphasize the pain and suffering Turner sees in the Nickel boys, even after they are out of Nickel. The Nickel boys could have had happy and eventful futures, but the torture they faced at the Academy survived with them. Moreover, Turner alludes to the New York Marathon, a place where he finds comfort in the unity around him since he didn’t get that at Nickel. The allusion shows that the boys from Nickel never ended up experiencing the unity and freedom that the outside world provided even after getting out because the nightmare from Nickel continued to haunt them. Though Turner has a successful life, he still has horrifying thoughts about returning to Nickel Academy. Turner dwells on the idea of dying alone, even though he is happily married: “Nickel hunting him to his final moment - a vessel in his brain explodes or his heart flops in his chest - and then beyond, too. Perhaps Nickel was the very afterlife that awaited him, with a White