Identity In Russell Banks's Rule Of The Bone

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Having a family is one of the most important relations to everyone in the world. Being able to come home and have people there who care about you and want what’s best for you means a lot to people, especially children. In the novel Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks, Bone is a fourteen year old kid who gets kicked out of his house and moves to his friend’s apartment (Russ and the biker’s apartment). Bone doesn’t have a family that could support him, so he becomes independent. Becoming independent is a difficult path to take for a fourteen year old kid. Furthermore, he starts committing crimes and hangs out with drug addicts. So, His personality changes because of his stepfather and the people around him that abuse him. His stepdad abuses sexually…show more content…
Bone doesn’t have family support. One of the reasons why Bone doesn’t have a family support is that His stepdad abuses him, as he says“the nights he’d sneaked into my room and made me touch his d*** and suck on it” (pg. 195). Abuse leads to some psychological problems. The problem with Bone is that he is scared of his stepdad. Bone’s stepdad threatens him by saying some nasty words to him like, as he says “all the time he said he’d cut off my d*** if I told” (pg. 196). I think what makes bone leaves his family is that he doesn’t want anyone to know about the times when his stepdad abuses him. He is afraid of what the society would think of him just like when he says “no one’d believe me” (page 296). So that is why Bone change his identity because he wants to be a new person. As he says “I’m a new person with a new name” (pg. 107). Bone doesn’t know how to deal with his stepfather or the society so he changed identity. But, in the same time he wanted to forget about his past. So, he finds that marijuana is what makes him relaxed and forget about everything. “I really want some weed” he says (pg. 16). But, I think This scene illustrates that he is tired of his past and just want to have a new life with a new…show more content…
When Bone meets I-Man, he changes a lot. As he say “I could ask I-Man to instruct me” (pg. 390). He learns a lot from I-Man which makes him a different person. As he says, “I’d come to know I in Jamaica, I’d seen the lights of I at the heights and at the depths” (pg. 386). He finds him-self in Jamaica because of I-Man. As he says “I wouldn’t been me, if it wasn’t for I-Man” (pg. 384). This scene shows that Bone considers I-Man as a father. Not just I-Man that teaches Bone a life lesson, but also Bruce and sister Rose. As he says “ I learned about my self and life from coming to love them out” (pg. 380). He talks about sister Rose and I-Man. That quote symbolizes that Bone starts changing him self because he learns from Rose and I-Man how to be him self. Also, he says “I’d even loved big bad Bruce because he’d died trying to save me from the fire and that taught me a lot too.” (pg. 386). He finally finds him-self and learns from other people how to live his life and love

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