Assignment 5 - Grade: A PDF

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Assignment 5

A Tale of Two Neighborhoods Wideman’s “Our Time” tells a personal story about the life of a family. This family was one that was forced to deal with a lot of internal and external hardship during their time in Pittsburgh. What drove a large portion of the story was actually the different settings they had encountered along the way and where each part of the story took place. It is clear that the characters interact differently depending on their environment, and are quick to make decisions that may or may not have been the same if they were located elsewhere. The change of place affects different characters in diverse ways, and a lot of the time, it is still not the same as what the character was expecting. Robby was a young boy that was dealing with a lot. He frequently got himself into trouble because of past grief and trapped emotion due to the recent death of his closest friend. This was his way of coping, and he and his family knew it. Robby never seemed to fit it whether it be with his classmates at school or even his siblings. Most of all, he felt underappreciated by his own family. He was the youngest of the children in his family, and was forced to watch all of his older siblings make friends, do well in school, and have a normal life. Robby was the outsider, and he strived to be unique through this label. Robby’s behavior landed himself and his family in a tricky situation. Robby’s mother, who didn’t always fit the motherly cookie cutter shape, was nonetheless always looking out for her children. She loved them. With good intentions at mind, she moved the

family out of Homewood for his own good. Homewood had a bad reputation in the eyes of Robby’s mother, even though it was where Robby had spent the majority of his life before that. To his mother, Homewood meant assault, violence, and struggle. Homewood was everything she didn’t want her sons to go through which is why she ultimately got up and moved. She found a place that was in her mind the complete opposite of the dreaded Homewood: Shadyside. She wanted to spend her time in a place as far away from the idea of Homewood as possible. She felt as though if she placed her son in an area as contrasting, he would lose his old views and instill new morals and values. Shadyside was an all-white neighborhood. It was different from what the family had ever been used to. Maybe there was such meaning to a new life. Robby’s mother had associated a lot with her own race. Crime. Lawlessness. This was her vision of a second chance. Robby’s mother’s dreams and hopes didn’t play out exactly as she had planned. The question at hand is simply, how much did a new place change Robby? The changes might have been enough for Robby, but we might not be able to say the same thing about his mother....