Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry Essay

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry Essay

  • Submitted By: malabsorbent
  • Date Submitted: 09/15/2009 9:52 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 951
  • Page: 4
  • Views: 1406

An important character in the novel, ‘Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry’, by Mildred Taylor, is Mama. Mama is a teacher at the children’s’ school, and as their mother is an inspiration and a leader to them, along with Papa. Mama is an important character in this text for many reasons, namely being because she implements the theme of defiance and strength, and because she inspires this in the children, particularly Cassie. The author also uses Mama to implement a theme which helps make the story timeless, staying strong and defiant.

Mama is the mother of Little Man, Stacey, Christopher John, and Cassie, and is the wife of Papa. Mama and Papa work together in this novel to raise their children into strong, defiant people, proud of their race and land. An example of this is when Papa said, ‘Look out there, Cassie girl, all that belongs to you.’ This shows that he is teaching her to take pride in the land that their ancestors worked for. Mama teaches at ‘The Great Faith Elementary and Secondary School’ where her children learn. Mama gets fired from her job here when TJ lets slip that she was the one who had glued paper over a piece of offending paper in each of the children’s books. The piece of paper showed that books of the poorest quality were restricted only for Blacks, and Mama rebelled by gluing over them with pieces of plain white paper when Cassie showed her. 'If that's the case Daisy, I don't think I need that little bit off food' said Mama when Cassie's teacher, Miss Crocker, complained that she was 'biting the hand that feeds you' when she saw what she was doing to the books. This quote uses a metaphor to show that Mama is being given help or 'food' but doesn't want it as it is offensive, so she works for it herself. This shows her defiant, strong attitude very clearly.

Mama is an important character in this story because of her influence on her children and those around her. The children respect mama and honour her wishes; they do what is right when...

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