Thank You Ma Am

Just an act of kindness is enough to change a person’s life. In Thank You Ma’am, Langston Hughes portrays the act of undeserved love from Mrs. Jones to Roger, a young kid who tries to steal from her. Roger and Mrs. Jones’s interactions in the story and the conflicts that Roger goes through impels the changes in his character. At the beginning of the story, the external conflict between Roger and Mrs. Jones incites the change in Roger’s character. The main event that starts this change is when Mrs. Jones is walking home late at night and a young boy Roger “ran up behind her and tried to snatch her purse.” (pg. 69). This causes the two characters to meet and the interaction is the first step in Roger’s changing. Without this conflict, there would be no starting point on his journey to becoming a better person. Instead of calling the police, Mrs. Jones drags Roger to her

Jones and Roger is what compels him to choose to convert himself into a better person. The story highlights the relation of Roger and Mrs. Jones, which is what changes him completely. Mrs. Jones tells Roger that she too has made poor decisions in her life. After this, Mrs. Jones goes behind a screen to cook him dinner, leaving her purse completely unattended. The text in the story states, “But the boy took care to sit on the far side of the room where he thought she could see easily see him out of the corner of her eye…” Mrs. Jones understands Roger and what he is going through in life. She knows now that she has done her part to try and help Roger and that it’s now up to him to decide which path he wants to go on. She is now trusting Roger to make the right choice, even though he didn’t make good decisions in the beginning of the story. The text shows that Roger decides to make the right choice and to show Mrs. Jones that he is trying to be better. Roger and Mrs. Jones’s connection is what shapes him into the better person he is trying to