Manchild Essay “Throughout my childhood in Harlem, nothing was more pressed upon me than, the fact that you had to fight”, Claude Brown proclaimed to the reader. The novel, Manchild In the Promised Land, by Claude Brown, describes the fight of his life growing up in New York. Experiencing the streets of Harlem as a young man in the 1940’s and 1950’s. This novel expresses the themes of misguided childhood, the twentieth century slaves of America, and the beneficial influences that a patriarchal household takes over a matriarchal household.
Although the streets are where Claude had gotten shot, we see his over-whelming pride for Harlem in the beginning of the book. We are soon introduced to Claude’s older crowd of friends. Butch, Danny, and Kid all eventually taught him how to live the “street” life. Claude began stealing, playing hookie, and “catting”
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Not once do we see self-pity, self-justification, or moralizing being given upon the main character. The reader cannot deny Claude Brown’s life was difficult, threatening, and violent. Much of Brown's book is filled with regret for the many of his neighborhood friends who died, victims of poverty, crime, and of drug addiction. Once the reader has began to understand Claude, we are quickly introduced to another major aspect of his story. This notorious element of the story was heroin, which Brown contributed to the downfall of his generation of people. Brown takes the reader through endless accounts of heroin capturing the lives of drug dealers and prostitutes. It is not until Brown’s brother falls victim to heroin, that the reader is given a view on how this drug can affect families. Early in the story we see a strong bond between Claude and Pimp. Claude took his responsibilities as an older brother seriously, but as the reader continues we see this bond broken by the drugs in