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Nickel Boys Sparknotes

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The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead is a powerful novel that provides a variety of viewpoints on how society perceives their day-to-day existence. A character in the book must maintain a secret to be safe and have a better life, but the secret also changes the plot's core and reveals the novel's deeper significance. Turner didn't try to change who Elwood was; instead, he wanted to reclaim it and make it his own so that he might live a better life and remember his great friend. But, this has an impact on the story since it alters Elwood's personality. Elwood, the major character, is a unique person who strives to achieve a lot. This contributes to the overall meaning since it shows life and friendship at the conclusion and connects everything …show more content…

To pursue justice, Elwood kept a journal detailing everything the Nickel Academy did to him. Turner makes himself ill to save Elwood after hearing that they could kill him"I ain't faking—that soap powder is awful," Turner said. "But it's me choosing, not anyone else." He becomes disobedient and attempts to start fighting things back after realizing that Turner didn't want anything to do with being loud and breaking the rules. Then he follows his plan. Elwood believed the school to be a standard one, not much like a jail, but he was incorrect, since he later suffered a beating for what he did with the …show more content…

To respect Elwood's memory after everything they had gone through, he kept his name. Elwood and Turner met in the reform school known as the Nickel Academy, where they quickly became the closest friends. While they had quite different viewpoints while there, they were still connected in some way. When Elwood passed away, it was certain that turner changed his heart and took Elwood's identity, “All the men on the website were white. Who spoke for the black boys? It was time someone did.” (209). The majority of white individuals who spoke out, it can be inferred, but nothing truly happened to them; at the Nickel Academy, it was primarily black people who suffered and were violently assaulted. Elwood died because he and Turner were both trapped in it and suffered as a result. Turner didn't let it define him; instead, he spoke up, informed people what was true, and fought to do

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Despite the evidence of abuse he has seen, Elwood maintains an unshakeable faith in the system's power to correct itself. He believes that if the state inspection team sees the conditions at Nickel for themselves, they will be compelled to take action and end the abuse. This belief in the inherent goodness of the system leads Elwood to make a risky decision, turning in evidence of abuse at Nickel to the state inspectors. While his intentions are good, this decision has negative consequences, as the evidence falls on deaf ears and only leads to further abuse by the staff. Elwood's idealism is, in some ways, naive and optimistic, as he fails to consider the systemic factors that allow abuse to continue unchecked.

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