A Place To Stand Jimmy Baca Character Analysis

Most individuals have experienced the everlasting joy and love that comes with caring family and friends, but the realization is that agony and despair will always win the war of light and dark, and family and friends are simply just impeding the end result. When a child is born, agony is already set in place, for screaming and crying will commence as soon as the child feels hands clasped on to him. However, this agony is soon met with joy as the child is met with his mother’s soothing heartbeat. Moreover, sometimes this heartbeat never comes, and thus, agony and despair stay within this child’s heart forever. Jimmy Baca, a lost young man who has only witnessed pain in his life, is this child. Furthermore, there comes a time in every individual’s

life where a major struggle or struggles are presented to them, but some people are able to fight off this struggle and persevere on. Jimmy Baca was not one of them. For although Jimmy Baca is now a free man, his imprisonment still haunts him to this day, and Jimmy will always view the world different because of his experiences in prison. In the end, throughout Jimmy Baca’s life, Jimmy has seen swift moments of vaunting joy, but agony and despair always find a way to creep back into Jimmy’s life.
First, in A Place to Stand, Jimmy was faced with many agonizing moments throughout the novel but none more critical than the betrayal of his mother.

In the most literal sense a mother is supposed to take care of her children and love them unconditionally, but Jimmy’s mother did the exact opposite. Jimmy’s mother and father would always have arguements, and this led to Jimmy’s mother leaving his father. Moreover, one day Jimmy’s mother dropped him and his brother off at Jimmy’s grandparents’ house. And as Jimmy’s mother is driving away Jimmy states, “I tried to pull free of Grandma’s hand, and I heard her say, ‘“Manana sea major con el favor de Dios.”’ Tomorrow will be a better day with God’s help. But as she led us into the house, I knew tomorrow would never be better. Something in my life had changed forever” (17). In that quotation, Jimmy is brought to realization that his mother would be leaving him forever, and Jimmy knows that this event would inevitably change the outcome of his life. Furthermore, the loss of Jimmy’s mother caused agony to dwell in his heart forever. In addition, the loss of his mother played an immense role on the rest of Jimmy’s life, and to this day, Jimmy never forgave his mother. This agony caused Jimmy to never trust anyone again. Also, throughout the next couple of years in Jimmy’s life, Jimmy would become familiar with the bars that he would soon call home. Jimmy Baca then states, “My parents never did come, and at thirteen years old I

found myself behind bars for the first time, in a detention center for boys” (20). In that quotation, the reader begins to notice how Jimmy is beginning bring more trouble into his life, yet he is still relatively young and still has a chance to change. However, this critical part of Jimmy’s life was only the beginning of what was to come.
Next, this agony that Jimmy had eventually led to despair. Although Jimmy had small moments of hope throughout the book, despair always seemed to creep its way back into his life. Moreover, family and friends played a huge role in Jimmy’s life, yet Jimmy’s family and friends continually hurt him and left him feeling alone. Jimmy states, “I wanted to take off across the snow and lose myself in the forest, moving over boulders and through trees, my path illuminated by the moonlight. The sad fact was that there was nothing to keep me in society- no family, no friends, nothing at all. I was utterly alone” (88). In that quotation, Jimmy had just been informed that the FBI had issued a warrant for his arrest, and after hearing the news, Jimmy begins to realize that he is truly alone with nothing but despair floating endlessly in his heart. In order to understand how all of Jimmy misfortunates happen, one must first go back to the beginning of Jimmy’s life. One important family figure that Jimmy had was his father, but Jimmy rarely saw his father because his dad was always in and out of jail. Furthermore, in the beginning of the novel Jimmy states how he saw despair in his father eyes when looking at his father locked up in a jail cell. Jimmy states, “As I grew up, my own eyes came to reflect those of drunks, addicts, and beggars, those grieving men, women, and children and their stories. It was the same despair I had seen through the bards in my father’s eyes, the same story” (3). In that quotation, Jimmy shows the reader how, from a very young age, he would begin to resemble his father. After witnessing his father behind bars, the reader can assume that Jimmy was already predestined to be locked up in prison much like his father, for despair seemed to play a crucial role throughout all of Jimmy’s family’s life.
In addition, even though Jimmy was locked up in prison and family couldn’t hurt him anymore, agony always dwelled inside of him causing him to have nightmares.

Jimmy always tried to keep these memories out of his head, but somehow they always found a way to come back to haunt him. Jimmy sates, “My brain would start boiling forth so many memories that I had to put toilet paper in my ears to block out the voices. Other times, however, nothing helped and I would wake up sweating and frightened, feeling I had no chance of ever having a decent life” (116). In that quotation, Jimmy is trying to shed free of all the nightmares that always seem to haunt him, but Jimmy knows that he will never be fully capable of getting rid of this memoires. Furthermore, Macaron, Jimmy’s closest friend in prison, was the only true person that Jimmy trusted, for Macaron taught Jimmy how to survive the brutal prison life. However, Macaron couldn’t fight Jimmy’s fights for him, so when Jimmy was faced with a situation with another inmate, Jimmy had to back up himself. Jimmy then states, “I planted my feet firmly apart and hit him until he sprawled out on the concrete floor. A voice inside my head kept yelling the whole time I was hitting him that I was doing this for Theresa, whose father had raped her, and for my brother, who’d been raped by those two white guys” (123). In that quotation, the reader is shown just how brutal Jimmy Baca has become, for Jimmy brutally injured an inmate who

wanted to rape him. Although, most individuals would say that Jimmy was just using self-defense, the truth is Jimmy came close to killing another human being, which is something that is unjust for anyone to do. In the end, agony was something that was presented many times throughout the story, and as much as Jimmy tried to preserver through all the agony; Jimmy still couldn’t quite stop himself from becoming what he so desperately didn’t want to become, a criminal.
Moreover, although Jimmy did find a way to become free of the agony that haunted him, despair stayed with Jimmy forever. Jimmy was never able to get rid of the despair that lied within his heart because ever time Jimmy was presented with hope something drastically bad would happen. While in prison, Jimmy was given the heartbroken news that his father had just passes away. Usually, when an individual’s loved one passes away tears are shed, but Jimmy couldn’t cry. Jimmy states, “I paced myself back and forth, slamming my fist into my open hand, commanding myself to weep, but I couldn’t. I hit the steel toilet with my fist until the flesh around my knuckles split to reveal chipped bones. And then a calm coldness came over me” (234). In that quotation, Jimmy shows how prison had severely changed him, for the tears he was once able to shed are no longer there. Jimmy is a changed man. However, not for the good because prison inevitably cut a hole in Jimmy’s heart and the hole stayed there forever. Next, after Jimmy is finally released from jail, Jimmy states how everyone in his life was beginning to die. Jimmy’s father, mother, brother, and his old girlfriend Theresa had all died. Furthermore, Jimmy was able to get over all of his families and friends death, but despair still remained in Jimmy’s heart. Jimmy states, “I was innocent and pure. I was that child, free to begin life over and to make my life one they would all bless and be proud of. I was truly free at last. And as I thought this, it began to rain harder and the cathedral bells started ringing” (264). In that quotation, the reader is presented with the final scene of the novel, and although some might say that this is a happy ending, Jimmy knows that no happy ending in available in his life thus the rain represents the despair flowing throughout all of his body.
Most individuals have experienced the everlasting joy and love that comes with caring family and friends, but the realization is that agony and despair will always win the war of light and dark, and family and friends are simply just impeding the end result. Jimmy Baca was faced with many obstacles in his life, and he was never able to quite get over all of them. Agony always dwelled within Jimmy’s heart ever since he first saw he alcoholic father behind bars, yet Jimmy always tried to get rid of this agony and replace it with joy, but this never happened. Despair was something that took a while for Jimmy to obtain, for Jimmy was as strong as any man could be when faced with this many different obstacles. However, once despair is a part of an individual’s life, despair will stay in this person’s heart forever never ceasing to let go. In the end, most individuals visualize that Jimmy’s life turned out for the better, but the sad truth is that agony will always dwell in Jimmy’s mind, and despair will always reside within Jimmy’s heart, for the loss of his family and friends and his imprisonment caused Jimmy to change into an individual who simply has no spirit.