Reading Inquiry: How are minorities portrayed in books?

      In The Westing Game, there are several different minorities portrayed in different ways. The story is about some people who are invited to play the Westing Game, a game found in the will of a rich relative. One minority shown are children. Because Turtle, the daughter of one of the players, is a child, she is treated worse by her mother. This is because she is the second child, after her perfect sister, Angela. Turtle gets a room the size of a closet and gets the clues that are given to her for the game taken by her sister. Children, in this case, are portrayed as not fully respected and sometimes taken advantage of. However, Turtle knows how to defend herself, mostly by kicking people in the shin. In this way, children are shown to be able to protect and defend theirselves.

      Another minority shown in this book are African Americans. Judge J.J. Ford is a judge, the first black judge in the court she works for. She is very smart, able, and is one of the most sensible people in the book. I think this shows that the author is completely against segregation or anything along those lines (this book was written in the seventies.) African Americans in this book are portrayed very well, in a way that tells that race does not dictate ability.

      Finally, the "perfect" young woman is a third minority shown in the book. Angela, Turtle's sister, is her mother's favorite, engaged to a medical intern, and never does anything that might go against her mother's wishes. At least, until she bombs the apartment. The fact that Angela is often refered to as a pretty, sweet, young "thing" shows that women are (or were) considered more as pleasant things to have around than as people. However, the fact that Angela bombs the apartments, and then herself to throw people off her track, suggests that the author thought, similarly to the previous paragraph, that gender does not dictate ability.

Social Issues in Fiction

     In the Chronicles of Narnia series there are several social issues that are translated into a fantasy version, but that when they are analysed come down to the same thing. One of these is in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where the evil queen turns anyone who dares defy her to stone. This represents what happens in some dictator-run governments where anyone who thinks differently from the leader is put in jail or otherwise punished. It is also like WWII, when anyone who was a different religion or who was against Hitler were severely punished, and often killed. These kinds of problems, although happening less, are still occurring in today's world, although many people are trying to stop the tyrants.

     In another book, once again fantasy, The Divide, there are several neighborhoods which are pretty much split up in poor vs. rich, dangerous vs. safer areas. Unfortunately, this is a problem in the real world, which I suppose could be called class systems. Having neighborhoods, or even countries, that are classified like this can make people less or more likely to live there. If someone knows there is a very poor country that doesn't have basic survival materials, they probably won't live there, but someone who can't live anywhere else will, where they will most likely stay in those conditions. This is one problem shown in The Divide.

   One last book which has social justice problems is The People of Sparks. In this book, people who have lived underground for centuries and are running out of supplies make it to the surface, and ask for shelter in a small village. Suspicions start to become apparent against them, resulting in an almost war. This isn't exactly racism, because technically both peoples are human, but the fact that they come from underground makes them different, which somehow, in the minds of the villagers, makes them more suspicious and likely to create trouble. This is also kind of like what happened when people fought because they came from different countries, or like when immigrants who came to the US were treated less well.