Roll of Thunder: Critical Essay

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‘Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry’ Critical Essay ‘Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry’ by Mildred D Taylor is a very moving novel. The novel is about Cassie Logan, who tells the story, and her family are living whilst being discriminated against. The story tells how they live their life and how they face their problems. They live on their farm, Mississippi, Texas. Mildred D Taylor was born on the 13th of September 1943 in Jackson, Mississippi. I think she thought of the story because she was born in Mississippi (where the novel was set) and she was born during the Great Depression where black people where discriminated against. Many of her books are based on stories of her family that she heard whilst growing up. She experienced some of the unfairness so decided to show her hurt in literature so everyone could see how hard it was to live during the Great Depression. The plot is well written and is told in first person narrative by Cassie. It is set in the 1930s. The story gives you a good idea of how black people lived their lives in that time and how they dealt with this unfairness. It shows the family’s reaction when approached differently from white people. The main family in the story (the Logans) live on a farm and grow some of their own food but they still don’t have enough money and aren’t allowed to shop at white owners shop. The themes of the story are integrity, passive resistance, bravery, civil disobedience, internal belief system and leadership. I think it’s a good idea that the same person is telling the story because you can see how a young child reacts to being discriminated against, but the disadvantage is that you can’t hear the other side of the story. When the author describes something, she creates a vivid picture in your head for example, ‘Spring. It seeped unseen into the waiting red earth in early March, softening the hard ground for the coming
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