Townie by Andre Dubus III

All towns, cities, and areas have their own specific traits. Small towns tend to be more like a family, while big cities tend to be more passive. Then there are the small areas where people do not make much money and struggle to get by. These areas tend to be more violent and more influenced by drugs and alcohol. This is the area that Andre Dubus III grew up in, in his memoir Townie. His parents were divorced and neither of them made much money so he and his two sisters and brother ended up moving from one small crummy neighborhood to another. In these neighborhoods he would get involved in the wrong crowds and end up doing drugs, drinking, and fighting. This became a way to show power. The most powerful people were strong and always came out on top in fights, had all the drugs and alcohol, and therefore all the power. This drove many people to fight so that they could move up this chain of command. No one wanted to be the bottom because that was the position of the most abused people of the neighborhood. This need and fear is what drove Andre to fight and the understanding of this fear is what drove him away from fighting.

The biggest aspect that pushes anyone to do anything is their environment. For Andre that meant that he was pushed into not just drugs and alcohol but violence to. He did not start off fighting, but he was beaten by the other boys he lived around. It all started as self-defense. He would be walking to school, walking home from school, or even just walking around town and some guy would jump him and just start wailing on him. He would through a few ineffective punches out of resistance and they go limp knowing that doing so would make the whole ordeal end longer. This atmosphere that he lived in was one that t...

... middle of paper ...

... a need to serve justice out to the world. He would go out looking for injustice and cruel people that he could teach a lesson to. Finally he simply became obsessed with and would go looking for any reason to fight people. He had slowly became the person he had feared as a child. After a long time he was sick of what he had become and turned to creativity to change that. He began to write and from that writing he realized that he did not need to fight he could write and that writing made him feel better than fighting ever did. This memoir really portrays the impact violence has on a person’s life and how with a push in the right direction then can be helped. No one ever stops being who they were but they can build on that person to become someone stronger and more to their liking.

Works Cited

Dubus III, Andre. Townie. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. Print