What Is The Significance Of The Nickle Boys Chapter 8

Colson Whitehead’s novel The Nickle Boys explores how the actions of other people affect the interactions the main characters, Elwood and Turner, have with the racial and social hierarchies.
In part one of the novel, The Nickle Boys, Elwood learns from his new teacher, Mr. Hill, that you must not let the racial hierarchy get in your way of being successful. Chapter 3 begins with the students at Lincoln High School receiving used textbooks from the white school across the road. They open their books to be met with horrifying words that were directed toward the black students. After setting this moment in time the narrator presents the question, “How to get through the day if every indignity capsized you in a ditch?” but then answers it, “One

While attempting to break up a fight between a few bullies and a little boy named Corey, Elwood, and the boys get caught by Phil, a white houseman. Phil asked no questions and told them that Spencer would be informed about the incident. In the middle of the night, the boys got taken to the White House, a place that Elwood had only heard stories about: “This place was why the school had no wall or fence or barbed wire around it” (67). In this quick thought of running, Elwood realized that the workers were using their power to keep them in. In the social hierarchy the employees, such as Spencer, were at the top and the boys were at the bottom. The White House was a building where Spencer would torture kids, black and white alike, for bad behavior. This building intimidated kids and was the reason very few ran away. When the boys entered the shed, Black Mike was chosen to go first. Elwood tried to figure out a pattern for the number of strikes they each got but ultimately gave up: “Unless there was a higher system to how many each boy got: repeated offender, investigator, bystander… but maybe he’d get less for stepping in”(68). Elwood had a short moment of faith in the social hierarchy, thinking that the number of hits would be based on how bad his behavior had been. When Elwood counted Correys’ number versus one of the bullies, Correy had more, so he realized that it was at random. At this time Elwood realized that since the houseman had so much power over the boys, and they didn’t care if the number of times each boy got was fair or not, all that mattered was that they were being