The Baddest Dog in Harlem

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The Baddest Dog in Harlem “The Baddest Dog in Harlem” is a short story by Walter Dean Myers. The story takes place in Harlem, in a ghetto area. We follow a young black man, who lives in this area. What happens is that the narrator and his friends are sitting outside of a place called “Big Joe’s”. We are not told what the narrator’s name. The narrator and his friends are discussing who the best boxer is all time. All of the sudden police officers are invading the street. Apparently a man is in possession of an automatic rifle, and the police officers are trying to find him. There is a lot of shooting against an apartment. It turns out that the “man” that the cops thought they were shooting at was actually just a dog in a window. In the end the narrator also finds out that the cops have shot a young boy who was watching television. He thinks to himself that he would wish that the community would stick together in order to prevent something like this from happening, but in the end he doesn’t even tell anyone about the child. The main character is the narrator. Although his name is never revealed we have an insight into his thoughts. For instance on page 24, line 30 to page 25, line 5. Here we hear his thoughts about how he wants to tell his friends about the little kid. The narrator is therefore an internal first person narrator. The narrator is the only round character in this story. It is his development we follow. The themes in this story could be “Ghetto life” or “Violence.” The song “41 shots” by Bruce Springsteen is a good comparison to these topics. In his song, Springsteen sings about how black people are stereotyped as dangerous. For instance when he, in the chorus, sings “Is it a wallet? Is it a knife? You can get killed just for living in your American skin,” he refers to the fact that black people can get killed if they just try to take their wallet
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