Summary Of 57 Bus By Dashka Slater

n Dashka Slater’s 57 Bus, Richard, Sasha, and Jerry show that people can change their personalities through the forgiveness of past actions. The story begins slowly with a young person named Sasha who is an agender human being. While going on the 57 Bus, her skirt gets lit and her skin gets burned. Richard is a 16-year-old teenager who is dumb, but not stupid. He makes many mistakes in his lifetime. After lighting Sasha on fire, he rethinks his decision and his life choices. While on trial, after rethinking her decision, Sasha wants Richard to succeed in life. After being sentenced to jail Richards starts to exceed in finding a job and becomes a highly ranked inmate. He starts to forget his past and thinks about his future. Before meeting Richard,

Richard had been put through many obstacles in his lifespan, but because of the fire incident, in jail, he learned to forget his mistakes and improve consistently. After being sentenced, “Richard was doing exceptionally well. He had already attained Incentive Level A, the highest level a young inmate could achieve. He had gotten over the thought of jail and had been exceeding in many ways” (Slater 292). While Richard may not have been the most intelligent person, he was very diligent and he forgave the people who punished him by forgetting them and persevered to change himself and his personality no matter the obstacles thrown at him by achieving the highest job possible in prison and constantly gaining knowledge of the outside world. While Jerry’s changed personality is present after talking to Kaprice, Jerry seems to be all but changed when shouting at Kaprice when she wants to have a family with

After going on a walk Lil Jerry plants flowers and tries to forget his past actions. He gets mad at Kaprice and tells her that she should not mess with anyone else. After they had gone home “Lil’ Jerry refused to sleep with her after that. “He froze me,” Kaprice says. He was like you are not gonna mess with nobody else. Try somebody else, I’ll kill them and I’ll kill you first” (Slater 73). After shouting at Kaprice and showing forgiveness for his actions by forgetting the people who have murdered those close to him, Jerry continues to help provide for Kaprice and tells her not to have a baby for her own good. While Jerry is in a terrible situation living in the hood and may seem to still not have forgiven those who have wronged him, he still continues to change his personality through the forgiveness of others and past actions.
While the characters have an unlikely chance of changing their personality in the “57 Bus,” by Dashka Slater, they show forgiveness for their past actions and change their personalities