Stepping On The Cracks Analysis

Gordy Smith is from the story, Stepping on the Cracks and is one of the main protagonists in the story who plays the role of the “neighborhood bully.” Throughout the story it is easy to see that Gordy is disrespectful because he’s obnoxious, because he’s aggressive, and because he’s cruel. However, Gordy is most likely driven by his motivation, which is attention since he has been neglected and abused by his parents.
The reader can see Gordy is disrespectful because he’s obnoxious. One piece of evidence is when Gordy comes across Margaret and Elizabeth, the other two protagonists of the story, and boasts of how much scrap (tin cans, hubcaps, and old newspapers and magazines) he has collected, saying, “‘I bet you never saw anybody get more stuff than this (page 37).’” This shows Gordy is obnoxious enough to brag even about things like scrap. Another piece of evidence that shows Gordy is obnoxious is on page 19 when Margaret is in her tree house and Gordy says to her, “...Shut up...or I’ll shoot you full of BBs,” The ammunition for a BB gun. Finally, the last piece of

The reader can clearly see this on page 48 when Gordy sees Elizabeth walking to school and stops her in her tracks, and breaks all of Elizabeth’s supplies (a box of crayons, a notebook, a ruler, her pencils, her fountain pen, an unused gum eraser, and a bottle of blue ink), showing he is cruel because he breaks all of her supplies, when she did nothing. Another piece of evidence that shows Gordy is cruel is when Gordy grabs Elizabeth’s hair. According to the text, “Gordy started cursing. Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he pulled so hard Elizabeth’s hair jerked sideways (page 65).” Finally the last piece of evidence is when Gordy takes Elizabeth’s and Margaret’s comics and starts ripping them apart, only keeping the ones he wants. Some readers may take this as a sign of Gordy being greedy. However, they’re wrong, since he is doing it just to be cruel, not because of