When A Southern Town Broke A Heart Analysis

Have you ever realized that a place you have treasured all your life is actually not as perfect as you imagined? That’s what happened to Jacqueline Woodson. As we grow up, our outlook on life changes and sometimes that can be very scary. In When A Southern Town Broke A Heart by Jacqueline Woodson, the author introduces growing up and experiencing change as a central idea in the story. When Woodson was a child, she wanted to think that segregation was a thing of the past. Instead, she realized she was living in a town more flawed than expected, with many racist people. At the end, Woodson no longer feels secure in a town that used to be the safest place possible. By observing how her character changes over the course of the plot, it seems evident that Woodson is trying to convey to the reader that when growing up, one becomes aware of new things that used to be hidden from them. One example in the story happens when Woodson is nine and beginning to see Greenville as not an amazing and sheltered place, but more of an unsafe town. “The summer I was nine years old, the town I had always loved morphed into a beautifully heartbreaking and complicated place” (pg.1). Here, Woodson is trying to explain to the reader that when she began to see Greenville as it really was, it broke her heart. This matters because the quote shows how growing up

Woodson said, “we’d be warned to stay away from the small patch of poison ivy that grew around the base of the one tree in my grandparents’ backyard” pg 2. What Woodson is essentially trying to convey in this quote is how her grandparents tried to protect her from poison ivy, as well as racism and racist people. This supports my argument because it shows how eventually, as one grows older, they can no longer be protected from certain people or in this case, poisonous