That Was Then This Is Now Analysis

Positive > Negative In society, there’s conformist and nonconformist. Conformist accept the established practices and beliefs. Nonconformist go against the established practices and beliefs. An example of a conformist is Mark Jennings from the book,“That Was Then, This Is Now” by S.E. Hinton. Mark is a sixteen year old boy who lives on the East Side of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The East Side, is a run down neighborhood filled with kids from broken homes, criminals, and gangs. Mark lives with his best friend, Bryon and Bryon’s mother because his parents killed each other during a drunken argument. Mark steals things, hustles, and doesn’t care about others. An example of a nonconformist is Karen from, “Parents’ Night” by Nancy Garden. Karen is a high schooler who lives with her parents and sister, Josie. She is in the closet because she is afraid to come out to her parents. Her mother and father are not accepting to the LGBTQ community. The beneficial consequences overpower the negative consequences when

Many boys in his neighborhood, stole, sold drugs, and didn’t care much about people or the law. They did this to get by in life. Mark stole things just because. He sold drugs for money. He didn’t see much wrong with his actions. Mark’s best friend, Bryon says that, “Mark was really bad about stealing things. He stole things and sold them, or stole them and kept them, or stole things and gave them away”. Bryon then says that, “Mark couldn’t see anything wrong with stealing stuff.” Mark grew up in an environment where this wasn’t odd. The things he did, didn’t shock anyone because everyone did it. Mark didn’t care much about people either. He had a broken home, and lived with his best friend’s family. Besides that family, Bryon didn’t care much about people. Bryon says that, “He looked perfectly capable of murder; his only regret was that he had missed.”, when he talks about Mark almost killing