Monster By Walter Dean Myers Sparknotes

“The best time to cry it at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help” (Myers 1). Having to clean disgusting floors, “You throw up, you clean it up!” Eating with strangers, sleeping with strangers, going to the bathroom in front of strangers. This is real life, not a movie; this is the real life of being in jail. Steve Harmon, the main character in the novel, Monster, written by Walter Dean Myers, experienced this. Harmon, a sixteen-year-old boy, was accused of felony murder along with James King, age twenty-two. People like Osvaldo Cruz and Richard “Bobo” Evans were called to the stand and readers assimilate the story behind Alguinaldo Nesbitt, the owner of the drugstore who was murdered. During the

Even Steve’s own father critics his son because he found out that Harmon knew and spoke to people like King, Bobo, and Cruz. “My father is no longer sure of who I am. He does not understand me even knowing people like King or Bobo or Osvaldo” (Myers 281). Harmon wrote in his notes after the trial that his father does not know who he is anymore. His own father is judging him by whom he hung out with and now he thinks that Harmon is a different person-- a delinquent. Harmon’s father thinks that Steve is a miscreant like the criminals in jail because Harmon talked to King, Bobo, and Cruz. Not just Steve’s father is judging him, the jury and people in court are. Sandra Petrocelli was testifying Harmon. Petrocelli was asking him if King, Cruz, and Bobo are friends or acquaintances. Harmon states they are all acquaintances. (Myers 232). The purpose of Petrocelli questioning Harmon is because if King, Cruz, and Bobo are “friends” rather than “acquaintances” then the jury is more likely going to connect King, Cruz, and Bobo with Harmon-- making him seem more guilty. If Harmon is seen hanging out with so-called “monsters” then people are going to think he is a “monster” too. In closing, people have judgement on others’