Paperboy: Prejudice In T. V. Boy's Story

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Recommended: Racial segregation in the US in the 1960s

After finishing the book Paperboy, I thought it was a book that could influence many people in many ways. This is why I want you to read it, you can learn many things from this book and you could even relate and learn something from some of the characters. In the book the paperboy has a speech impediment where he stutters, he feels he will never be able to accomplish anything because of this defect. But soon he learns that he is more than just a stuttering kid, he is a kid with great potential and a very adept kid. And on top of all of this we get a glimpse of how the 1950's were like and how severe racial segregation was. In times like this people could not accept black people and it was a hard time for black people to get their opinions out, …show more content…

He does not realize at first that other people are having their own issues themselves, Mam being black has problems herself with discrimination. T.V. Boy is deaf and communicates through sign language. And Mrs. Worthington is trapped in a loveless relationship and is an alcoholic. When the paperboy realizes how other people have similar problems he thinks that his speech impediment isn't so bad after all. We get to see the paperboy's journey of self- acceptance of his stutter throughout the book, as he learns that there are more problems than his stutter. With all of this we also see how life was like in the 1950s with racial segregation and how bad it was. Black people were mistreated mainly because of their skin colors. We see the struggles black people had to face such as sitting at the back of the bus, getting called racial slurs and more. You feel sorry for characters like Mam through the book because of how she got treated. Today segregation isn't as severe as it was back then. But you can learn from others mistakes back then how never to treat someone because of how they are different from you. Throughout this book the paperboy goes on a journey where he becomes

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