Bullying In Chris Crutcher's Whale Talk

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Over 67% of students believe that schools respond poorly to bullying, with a high percentage of students believing that adult help is infrequent and ineffective. Through the book the obvious theme to me is bullying. The author of this book Chris Crutcher is a very talented author. He has many books that are very good but has only earned one award. “Whale talk” has a main theme about bullying and it shows it through many characters and the mental and physical effect it has on people.

Rich Marshall has made a name for himself in cutter high school for being notorious for being a jock and a bully. He tells his stepdaughter every day that she is the “wrong color”. It gets so bad that she has to go to therapy because of the way he treats …show more content…

Chris Coughlin is one of many students at cutter high school that is affected by bullying. It started when Chris wore his brothers' letter jacket to school and mike Barbour an antagonist in the book threatened him if he wore that jacket again he would burn it. The jacket to me stands as a symbol in this novel. It stands for the people who are outcast in the school and it shows people are worth more than just some jacket.

In this novel, Rich Marshall who is also an antagonist meets a woman who has an African American kid who he mentally bullies so bad that she thinks she is the “wrong color”. One day Rich told her to scrub it off and she used a brillo pad to try to scrub her skin off. As she came out of TJ’s kitchen her arm was covered and blood she says “guys look it worked”. She said it in such a tone that she sounded excited when asked who told her to do this she said “daddy Rich”. In the modern society bullying is a big problem at almost every school around the world. At culler middle school a kid is mentally bullied until it got taken to the next level one day after school when she was physically pulled down by her by another student. No one should be treated this way especially when they are very nice and caring

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