Labels are used every day by everyone sometimes they are used without even knowing it. Author Evan Hunter shows the importance of self-identification and the use of labels in the short story “On The Sidewalk Bleeding” Andy went out to get some cigarettes while wearing his bright purple jacket with lettering across the back that read the royals. While on his way he was stabbed by a member of a competing gang. While he is laying there bleeding a drunk man comes over to him and thinks that andy is as drunk as he is so he does Andy a “favour” by not calling the cops. Later a couple sees him lying there but are too scared to help him because he was wearing the royals jacket and were afraid of the other gangs. And in the end when the police finally find him the police only see him as a royal, not andy whereas the only two people that see him as andy are himself and his girlfriend, Laura. After …show more content…
In the end of the story, Andy realizes that he no longer wants to be seen as a royal and that he wants to be seen as just andy. “It seemed important to him that he take off the jacket. He was close to dying. When they did find him, he didn 't want them to say “Oh, he 's a Royal.”...The jacket had only one meaning now. That was a very simple meaning...The knife had not hated Andy. The knife hated only the purple jacket. The jacket was a stupid thing that was robbing him of his life...I 'm Andy.”(HUNTER 6/7). This shows that the jacket symbolizes the royals and that andy doesn 't want to be a royal that he just wants to be andy. It was important to andy that when he dies the people will see him as andy not a royal or part of a gang. In the end of the story after andy had died his girlfriend, Laura finds him and calls the police when the police come the only thing the officer sees is a royal they don 't see him as andy a