Write About Some Of The Different Ways In Which Characters In The Novel Deal With The Difficulties and Situations Which They Face. You Should Discuss At Least 3 Characters In Your Answer.
Write About Some Of The Different Ways In Which Characters In The Novel Deal With The Difficulties and Situations Which They Face. You Should Discuss At Least 3 Characters In Your Answer.
Throughout the novel, characters deal with situations they are faced with in very different ways. Some confront them, some avoid them, some are innocent, some spend more time plotting revenge, but all of the ways seem to have positive effects, and are constantly used as devices to move time along. The three characters I have chosen to discuss are Cassie, Papa, and Harlan Granger, because each of these 3 people deal with problems and situations in different ways.
For example, Cassie seems to prefer taking her time and planning how she is going to deal with a situation rather than rush into it sometimes, but other times she acts quite childish and innocent, showing her actual age, and sometimes she is mature in dealing with a problem, knowing exactly what she needs to do.
At one point in the novel, as Cassie is beginning to understand racism and what life is going to be like for her, she faces a very undermining situation, in Strawberry. Cassie, TJ and Stacey go into the store, and halfway through completing their order, the shopkeeper stops to serve a white girl. Cassie does not understand why this is happening, and is very childish. At first, she asks politely what is happening, being inquisitive, yet innocent thinking that the shopkeeper has forgotten them.
"Certainly Mr. Barnett had simply forgotten about TJ's order."
"I think you forgot, but you was waiting on us 'fore you was waiting on this girl here..."
After being ignored, she shows her true age and kicks up a fuss, resulting in being severely embarrassed.
"'I ain't nobody's little nigger!' I screamed."
After this incident, Cassie then got into yet another embarrassing situation.
"It was then that I bumped into Lillian Jean Simms."
Cassie bumped into a white girl on the sidewalk. She was forced to apologise to Lillian Jean by her father, and Big Ma, but she again acted childishly because she didn't understand why she should have to apologise.
"I'm sorry, Mizz Lillian Jean," demanded Mr Simms."
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After being ignored, she shows her true age and kicks up a fuss, resulting in being severely embarrassed.
"'I ain't nobody's little nigger!' I screamed."
After this incident, Cassie then got into yet another embarrassing situation.
"It was then that I bumped into Lillian Jean Simms."
Cassie bumped into a white girl on the sidewalk. She was forced to apologise to Lillian Jean by her father, and Big Ma, but she again acted childishly because she didn't understand why she should have to apologise.
"I'm sorry, Mizz Lillian Jean," demanded Mr Simms."
"I turned and fled crying into the back of the wagon."
After this incident however, Cassie spends a lot of time plotting her revenge against Lillian Jean, dealing with the problem that she was faced with, showing that she is clever.
First she gets into Lillian Jean's good books by sucking up to her, and basically pretending to admit that she was wrong not to apologise.
"After all, I am who I am and you're who you are."
She then befriends Lillian Jean, learning all of her deepest secrets, so that she has something to hold against her and blackmail her with so she doesn't get into trouble after she has got her revenge.
"...I'm gonna make sure all your fancy friends know how you keeps a secret."
She also shows how clever she is because she has prepared for fighting Lillian Jean well before the incident, and knows exactly what she is doing.
"She tried to pull my hair but couldn't. For I had purposely asked Big Ma to braid it into flat braids against my head."
During this whole incident, Cassie shows how cleverly she can deal with difficulties and situations she is faced with. She deals with them by carefully planning every single detail, and making sure she sticks to it. This way she manages to get her revenge, without getting into trouble.
Even though he is an adult, and Cassie is only a child, Harlan Granger's ways of dealing with his difficulties and situations he is faced with is somewhat more immature, and less thought out.
One of the main difficulties Mr Granger is faced with is that in 1887 and 1918, the Logans acquired 400acres of Granger land because of the Reconstruction. During the whole novel, Harlan Granger tries to get the land back off the Logans, but fails everytime, showing that his tactics are obviously a lot less thought out than Cassie's.
Later on in the novel however, Granger's attempts to get the land back get more desperate, and cruel. He knows that the Logan's still have a mortgage on the land to pay, and he threatens to have the mortgage called up, knowing that they will lose the land because they cannot afford it.
"Mr. Joe Higgins up at First National told me he that he couldn't hardly honour a loan to folks who go around stirrin' up a lot of bad feelings in the community -"
"You ready to lose your land, David, because of this thing?"
Nearer the end of the book, he deals with another situation he faces in a very childish, careless manner, showing that he just wants it over with as soon as possible, and that he doesn't really care about what is happening, just about himself and his reputation.
TJ is about to be hung on Granger Land, by the nightmen for shooting Jim Lee Barnett, and instead of stopping them from murdering TJ, Mr Granger simply says they have to do it on someone else's land.
"Mr. Granger sent word by me that he ain't gonna stand for no hanging on his place. He say y'all touch one hair on that boy's head while he on this land, he's gonna hold every man here responsible."
However eventually Harlan Granger does stop the hanging, to deal with a different difficulty that he is faced with, but his only true motives for this are because the Logan land is on fire and firstly he wants the land, and secondly he doesn't want the fire to spread and destroy his own land.
"Dry as that timber is, a fire catch hold it won't stop burning for a week. Give that boy to Wade like he wants and get on up there!"
All in all, Harlan Granger's ways of dealing with difficulties and situations that he is faced with are not well thought out, and he only deals with them out of selfishness, or for his own reasons rather than to help others.
Papa is an adult like Harlan Granger, but he too has different ways of dealing with difficulties and situations that he is faced with. Papa deals with things he more logical way. He shows braveness, and philanthropy throughout the novel, dealing with things in a way that will benefit others more than himself, if not solely for others.
At the end of the book, when TJ is in trouble, Papa shows the best signs of doing all he can to help others. Even though the Logans are not well off, Papa sets fire to their cotton field, in order to distract the nightmen from hanging TJ, because he knows that they will come and try to put it out. This results in uniting the community.
"Papa stared out as a bolt of lightning splintered the night into a dazzling brilliance."
He is clever, because like Cassie, he plans the situation before he goes through with it, working out how he can make the fire look accidental, realising that the lightning could have struck. He doesn't tell a soul or admit to it, so that no harm can come to him.
"folks thinkin' that lightning struck that fence of yours and started the fire..."
"It's better, I think that you stay clear of this whole thing now David..."
"...Or somebody might start wondering about that fire..."
For his final difficulty, Papa is faced with his four children asking what will become of their friend, TJ. He doesn't lie to them, and yet he doesn't directly answer their question when they ask if TJ could die, so he is not hurting them but they still know.
"I ain't never lied to y'all, y'all know that."
"Well, I... I wish I could lie to y'all now."
To sum up Papa's character, he is very much like his daughter, calculating, clever, and planning everything, but he is much wiser, and doesn't act childish. His actions usually result in helping other people, they rarely hurt people unnecessarily. He is very unlike Harlan Granger, because he doesn't have his own private agenda.
