roll of thunder hear my cry critical essay

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

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The novel deals with weighty themes but includes many humorous moments. When Mary and Big Ma laugh with the children about the school bus or Cassie expresses irritation at T.J., humor lightens the novel’s mood . What other functions does humor serve in the novel? Cite at least two moments in the text where humor affects the novel’s plot, characterizations, or themes.

Cassie frequently mentions the food that her family prepares and consumes. How do the Logan family’s meals help characterize the family? In your answer, consider who prepares the Logans’ food as well as when and where it is served.

Cassie’s first-person narration guides readers through the novel. What are some of the qualities that make Cassie a strong narrator? Name at least two qualities and keep in mind the novel’s target audience when constructing your answer.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Novel — Racism and Perspective in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Racism and Perspective in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

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Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Essays

Mildred D. Taylor is the author of the book “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” and she tells us about an African American family and how about racism in the 1930‘s. In this book, we learn about racism in the deep South. Cassie Logan is 9 years old and she grows up in a good family and she never...

Mildred Taylor's "Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry": Hardships of The Logan Family In Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry the Logans family is faced with many different hardships, some more serious than other . The main character Cassie lives with her Mom, Dad, Grandmother and three brothers...

Contrast and compare the ways in which the characters of David and Hammer Logan deal with the issue of prejudice in “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” Mildred D. Taylor’s “Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry” is set during the Great Depression, in the rural areas of Mississippi...

1 676 words

In the novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry many characters took risks the two that stick out in my head the most is of papa and TJ. TJ didn’t study for a test so he wondered his eyes about until he saw some answers on a nearby classmates answer sheet. He could of suffered the consequence of...

Grace Chen English 6, Period 7 Mrs. Grunley March 22, 2010 Persuasive Essay Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Milred D. Taylor should be required reading for sixth graders. The book contains suspense and tension between the colored and whites during the 1930’s. Even though the book is unique and...

Roll of Thunder, Hear my cry : Character Study : Cassie Logan : In Roll of thunder, hear my cry, Cassie is the protagonist of the story, she is, the narrator. She is a nine-year-old child when the story begins and is starting to perceive injustices between people around her. Cassie is from the...

Roll Of Thunder: Hear My Cry Book Report 1. The setting for the short novel, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, is in the state of Mississippi, in the early 1930’s, which means that it is right during the middle of the Great Depression. I believe the setting is very important to the book because in...

In the novel Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, by Mildred. D. Taylor, an important character is T. J. Avery. During the course of the novel, T. J. ’s personality develops as he consorts with the Simms brothers. He becomes even more arrogant as he begins to associate down at the Wallace store with the...

We have not done anything. We have not done anything. That’s right. We have not done anything to stop the injustice that roams in the valleys and mountains of this country. We have not done anything to stop our children from facing the cruelty of these white people. We have not done anything to...

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry “You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. ” Exactly how important is family? Can you live without a friend? In the book Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor the Logan family were always there for each other when they were...

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor End of Unit Social Studies Project Prejudice is one of the main themes in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. The novel is set in the American South during the 1930's, but working to overcome prejudice is as important today as it was during the period of...

Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry Paragraphs A. I think Mr. Morrison gets attached to the Logan family because of his role as a body guard for the family. He appreciates the kindness that he is offered and went through memorable moments with the family, such as the story he told about the night men...

The great depression relates to the Roll of thunder hear my cry book in many ways. The Logan's lived during part of the great depression and also were very affected by it. In Roll of thunder hear my cry it talks a lot about them being in rough times with money and taxes. Papa and Mama worked...

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Characters Cassie Logan Cassie is the first-person narrator of the story. Cassie is an intelligent, outspoken, and self-confident nine year old girl, even when those qualities threaten to get her in trouble for speaking her mind in a white-dominated world. She is...

4 231 words

"White makes right" means that the whites are never wronged for their actions whenever a white does something clearly wrong to a black while the black has done right. In fact, the blame is pushed to the blacks instead, simply because whites are perceived to be the superior race. What is counted as...

1 132 words

Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry is a book based on a fictionalised true story. It is set in Mississippi the 1930s during the depression after slavery had been abolished leaving the black community with nothing. The Logans are the family that the...

?A poem which appears to be about an ordinary everyday experience but which actually makes a deeper comment about life is “Mrs Tilscher’s Class” by Carol Ann Duffy. This poem shows the stages of emotional realisation as a child gradually enters adolescence. The focus of my essay will be to explain...

? Language Arts In this amazing book titled Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry written by Mildred Taylor is a story is about an African American family living in the south during the 1930s. Stacey Logan is the oldest sibling in the Logan family. Stacey is a very kind hearted person and has great...

? ROLL OF THUNDER HEAR MY CRY BY STEPHANY BERNADEAU Characteristic traits of Stacey. This book by Mildred D. Taylor talks about a black family whose love for their land and one other support and protects them during the segregation. This family is called the Logan’s family. They have to suffer...

THEMES - THEME ANALYSIS Friendship/Family Cassie develops a more adult understanding of what friendship is as well as what it isn’t. Little Jeremy Simms is, at least for the present, a real friend, perhaps because he is something of an outsider among his own people and family. Nevertheless, he...

1 334 words

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Mildred taylor, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

From the blatant racism throughout the novel, it’s clear that the Logans are confronting the challenges of living in a society dominated by whites. At school, for example, the black children only have books that have been deemed unfit for use by white children. At home, the family is constantly defending their land from the former white owners’ attempts to take it back form them.

Although the Logans are victims of racial injustice, they also fight against it, setting up a boycott of the Wallace store. Mama and Papa’s struggle to teach their children to resist injustice demonstrates that there is hope for change in the future.

Racism ThemeTracker

Racism Quotes in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Finally T.J. said, “Okay. See, them Berrys’ burnin’ wasn’t no accident. Some white men took a match to ‘em.”

[Little Man] ran frantically along the road looking for a foothold and, finding one, hopped onto the bank, but not before the bus had sped past enveloping him in a scarlet haze while laughing white faces pressed against the bus windows.

“In the first place no one cares enough to come down here, and in the second place if anyone should come, maybe he could see all the things we need—current books for all of our subjects, not just somebody’s old throwaways, desks, paper, blackboards, erasers, maps, chalk…”

“Did the other men get fired?” “No, ma’am,” answered Mr. Morrison. “They was white.”

“These folks getting’ so bad in here. Heard tell they lynched a boy a few days ago at Crosston.”

“And ain’t a thing gonna be done ‘bout it,” said Mr. Lanier. “That’s what’s so terrible! When Henrietta went to the sheriff and told him what she’d seed, he called her a liar and sent her on home. Now I hear tells that some of them men that done it been ‘round braggin’ ‘bout it. Sayin’ they’d do it again if some other uppity nigger get out of line.”

Knowing that the bus driver liked to entertain his passengers by sending us slipping along the road to the almost inaccessible forest banks washed to a smooth baldness…we consequently found ourselves comical objects to cruel eyes that gave no thought to our misery.

“Sometimes a person’s gotta fight,” he said slowly. “But that store ain’t the place to be doing it. From what I hear, folks like them Wallaces got no respect at all for colored folks and they just think it’s funny when we fight each other. You mama knowed them Wallaces ain’t good folks, that’s why she don’t want y’all down there, and y’all owe it to her and y’allselves to tell her. But I’m gonna leave it up to y’all to decide.”

“Far as I’m concerned, friendship between black and white don’t mean that much ‘cause it usually ain’t on a equal basis. Right now you and Jeremy might get along fine, but in a few years he’ll think of himself as a man but you’ll probably still be a boy to him. And if he feels that way, he’ll turn on you in a minute.”

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

By mildred taylor.

• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Summary

Nine-year-old Cassie Logan heads to the first day of school with her brothers, twelve-year-old Stacey, seven-year-old Christopher-John, and six-year-old Little Man. It is October, 1933, and they are the children of an African-American couple living in rural Mississippi. The family owns four hundred acres of land, half of which is mortgaged, and Papa must work half the year on the railroad far away to pay for it. Mr. Granger, whose family owned the land during slavery times, wants to buy it back and constantly threatens to coerce them into selling it to him.

On the way to school, TJ Avery and his younger brother, Claude, tell the Logans that the Berry family were burned by the white Wallace brothers. A white boy, Jeremy Simms , joins them for part of the walk. He goes to Jefferson Davis County School while the Logans attend Great Faith Elementary. At school, Cassie and Little Man get in trouble with the teacher, Miss Crocker, by protesting that their used textbooks list the condition "very poor" next to their race. Mama, who is a seventh-grade teacher, pastes paper over the inside covers of her students' books to hide this information.

Papa returns unexpectedly from the railroad with a very big, strong man named Mr. Morrison , who got in a fight with some white men and lost his job on the railroad. He will be staying with the Logans.

In October, the children must walk to school in the rain and mud and are splashed by the vindictive driver of the white school's bus. (The black school cannot afford a bus because the county does not give it enough money.) One day, after being forced off the road into a muddy ditch, Stacey leads his siblings in digging a trench across the road at lunchtime to make it look like the road has washed out. After school, they watch from the forest as the bus drives into the ditch, breaking its axle, flooding its engine, and leaving the white students without a bus for two weeks.

Later, the children hear that the "night men" are out. Cassie sees cars approach the house in the middle of the night and then turn around. Later, TJ tells the Logan kids that these men tarred and feathered a black man, Sam Tatum , for accusing Jim Lee Barnett , who owns the Mercantile in the neighboring town of Strawberry, of cheating him.

Stacey takes the blame when he is caught with TJ's cheat-notes during a test. He follows TJ to the Wallace's store, where he has been forbidden to go, and punches him. Mr. Morrison catches him and brings him home. Stacey confesses to Mama, who punishes the four children for going to the store by taking them to see Mr. Berry, who is burned so badly that he is not recognizable and can no longer speak. Mama begins to arrange a boycott of the Wallace and Barnett stores.

Big Ma takes Stacey, Cassie, and TJ to the market in Strawberry. While Big Ma talks to Mr. Jamison, a friendly white attorney, TJ admires a pistol in the main store. When Mr. Barnett waits on white customers while ignoring TJ, Cassie tries to remind him of their presence. He calls her a "little nigger," then throws her out of the store for arguing with him. In the street, Cassie bumps into Jeremy's sister, Lillian Jean, and is forced by Mr. Simms to say, "I'm sorry, Miz Lillian Jean," as Big Ma looks on.

Uncle Hammer comes to visit for Christmas, hears this story, and is only prevented from going after Mr. Simms by Mr. Morrison. Mama explains to Cassie that Big Ma had no choice but accede to Mr. Simms' wishes. Uncle Hammer drives the family around in his new Packard and also gives Stacey a new coat. TJ makes fun of him because it is so big on him until Stacey gives it to TJ to borrow until he grows into it. Uncle Hammer makes him give it to TJ permanently for being irresponsible enough to let TJ take it from him in the first place. On Christmas, Mr. Morrison tells the story of how, when he was six years old, his entire family was killed when an angry white mob attacked his house, where two young men accused of molesting a white women were hidden.

Big Ma puts the land in Hammer and Papa's names to protect it. Mr. Jamison agrees to provide credit for the families who have agreed to have Papa shop for them in Vicksburg rather than patronize the Wallaces' store. Mr. Granger, who owns the land upon which Wallace store sits, threatens Uncle Hammer and Papa with the loss of their land.

Cassie pretends to be friends with Lillian Jean, acting subservient, calling her Miss, and carrying her books for her. One day she takes her into the woods and fights with her, pulling her hair until she apologizes for the incident in Strawberry. Cassie threatens to tell the secrets that Lillian Jean has shared with her if she says anything to her father. Mama fails TJ on a test for cheating. In retribution, he mentions to the Wallaces that she has covered the inside of the books. Kaleb Wallace, Harlan Granger , and another man from the school board come to Mama's class when she is teaching a lesson about the injustices of slavery and fire her.

Stacey stops being friends with TJ, and TJ starts hanging around with RW and Melvin Simms , who are older and are white. Mr. Avery , Mr. Lanier, and several other people stop buying goods in Vicksburg when Mr. Granger and Mr. Montier raise the percentages of cotton they want from their sharecroppers and threaten to kick anyone who continues the boycott off their land. On the way back from a trip to Vicksburg to buy goods for the few families still participating in the boycott, Papa, Mr. Morrison, and Stacey must stop when the back wheels fall off their wagon. As they fix them, the Wallace truck stops behind them and someone shoots at Papa, grazing his temple. The horse tries to run away, and the wheel of the wagon rolls over Papa's leg, breaking it. Mr. Morrison fights off the Wallaces, badly injuring them.

With his new injury, Papa can't go back to work on the railroad, but it looks like the family might scrape by until the bank calls in the note on their mortgage. Uncle Hammer sells his Packard to pay for it. He brings the money to his brother's family on the week of the revival, a religious and social event, but must leave quickly so as not to incite further tensions. TJ shows up at the revival with RW and Melvin, who he says will buy him the pistol at the Barnett store. When Stacey and everyone else ignore him and enter the church, TJ is upset but finally leaves with the Simms brothers.

That night, thunder rolls and Mr. Morrison keeps watch outside the house. TJ taps on the door in the middle of the night and tells Cassie and Stacey that he broke into the Barnett Mercantile with RW and Melvin to steal the gun. When Mr. Barnett came down to investigate the noises, RW and Melvin, who were disguised with stockings over their faces, hit him with the flat side of an axe. When his wife came down, they threw her against a stove, knocking her out. TJ threatened to tell the police, so the Simms boys beat him up badly. He asks Stacey to help him get home, and all four Logan children end up walking TJ back to his house in the middle of the night.

The Logan children watch from the woods as the Wallaces, Simms brothers, and other whites break their way into the Avery house and drag out its inhabitants, beating them. Many of them call for hanging TJ, Mr. Morrison, and even Papa. Mr. Jamison arrives and tries to stop them. Stacey sends the other children home to tell the adults what is happening.

After hearing the story from Cassie, Papa sets off with his shotgun and Mr. Morrison. Soon, Mama notices smoke coming up off the cotton, which is burning. She and Big Ma go out to fight the fire, which is heading towards the woods. Before dawn, Jeremy Simms comes to the house and says that all the white men (whom Cassie and her brothers saw at the Averys' house) have gone to fight the fire. He has also seen Papa and Stacey, who are all right. Just then, it begins to rain heavily, which puts the fire out.

Cassie and Little Man rush to the cotton fields where they see white and black men and women putting out the rest of the blaze. Mama and Big Ma take them and Stacey home. There, Stacey tells Cassie that Mr. Jamison tried to stop the hanging, but Mr. Granger would not cooperate until he smelled smoke and sent the men to fight the fire. That is when Mr. Morrison (strangely, not Papa) went to get Stacey in the woods. Cassie realizes that the lightening didn't start the fire, but rather, Papa started it. Papa and Mr. Morrison arrive home and Papa tells Stacey and Cassie that TJ is with the sheriff and will probably be put on the chain gang where he might die. Stacey bursts into tears and runs off. Papa follows his son after putting Cassie to bed. In bed, Cassie cries for TJ and the land.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Why doesn't Papa want to tell Hammer about his injury?

Papa is afraid there will be trouble if Hammer finds out about his injury. There's not a chance his hot-headed brother won't want revenge against the people who shot Papa. 

Papa tells Cassie, “There are things you can’t back down on, things you gotta take a stand on. But it’s up to you to decide what them things are.” What things todo you think Cassie must take a stand on? Why?

Papa is referring to the incident with Mr. Barnett at the store, as well as the incident with Lillian Jean.

what might the silver Packard represent or symbolize? Why might Tylor use this detail to introduce uncle hammer

In "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" by Mildred D. Taylor, the silver Packard represents wealth, status, and power. It symbolizes the economic prosperity and social standing that Uncle Hammer has achieved, particularly in contrast to the poverty and...

Study Guide for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry study guide contains a biography of Mildred Taylor, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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Essays for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

• Racism and Perspective in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

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