Black and White

Certainly I think that this book could be based on real events that the author may have witnessed or been involved with, but it could just as easily be exploiting the generalizations and stereotypes that exist within American society today. It is hard to determine which is more true in this case because both are very possible and there may not exist any changes in the story or plot based on what this book really presents. The story plays to both generalizations and real occurrences. One major way that this story is typical is that the white character is more affluent than the black character, and because of this he can afford a good lawyer and can be assumed to have been saved from any criminal punishment for his actions. Another example of this book being overly typical is that the black character is the one who is caught by the police and takes all the blame and punishment for a crime that he did not commit by himself. The white character is portrayed as only looking out for himself and in a bad light, while the black character is portrayed as loyal and takes responsibility for his actions. The reason that these same points can be seen as taken from real life experiences is because in some cases, like this one, generalizations can be true. Not to say that they are always true or that everything in this world is based on money and color, but sometimes it is. I think that when reading this story it is important to remember that this situation is very difficult for both characters to handle. Unless you yourself have been in the shoes of the characters it is impossible to know what you would do and therefore one cannot judge, good or bad, the actions of the characters. It is unfortunate that society today has been shaped by many years of racism and inequality, but the fact of the matter is that it has. The barrier between black and white still exists is many every day situations and is overplayed as a determining factor in tough situations such as the one presented in this book. Many other considerations must be examined before immediately assuming that decisions and outcomes are racially driven.

Thompson Article

I found this article on the linguistic characteristics of literature written for children to be very interesting. I did not expect that when comparing the features of literature for children and literature for adults, at least in the category of fiction, that there would be such similarity. Almost all of the tables and figures illustrated a high level of similarity in many of the linguistic characteristics that were explored in the chosen corpora. As the author pointed out, both adult and adolescent literature were very different from the newspaper corpus, which was expected. Newspaper writing, in my opinion, is very informative, to the point, and matter of fact. Yes, some writers of newspaper articles do express satirical views in their columns, but the point of the articles is still to present the news and some opinion about it.
It is hard for me to believe, although the evidence has been presented to me in this article, that adult and adolescent literature are very much alike in the ways presented in this study. When I consider the many various topics and writing styles of different authors in both categories it would seem to me that they would be different. Adolescent literature is much more simple in terms of both plot and writing styles. Also, the range of topics for this type of literature is limited to keep it at a PG rating. Adult literature has much more range in plot, writing styles, and topic. Because of this, I am compelled to believe that the linguistic characteristics that were presented in this study do not come close to fully classifying by any comparative means these different types of literature. I do not believe that just by counting which words and phrases appear most often in a work of literature that you can truly access the work. Much deeper analysis that considers the messages and philosophical views of a piece, as well as its complexity are needed to attempt any sort of classification by comparison. I do however commend this article for analyzing the way the world and human relation to the world is presented in these types of literature and finding that there are indeed differences.