Conflict
Narratives of conflict are the most numerous recurring image in the novel. This theme and image are not just par for the course in this novel but most of the author’s works and with good reason: conflict has been a constant in his own personal life from his very earliest memory. He was born Black during a time of great racial discrimination. He was adopted at a very young age by his father’s ex-wife and her husband by remarriage. His adoptive parents were a rarity during those tumultuous times: a multi-ethnic pairing that were from the middle income bracket. Individually, Myers was also in many ways an oddball and situations around him always seemed to be stacked up against him: a voracious reader, but he needed to keep this hidden as reading was seen as an un-manly activity, he had a speech impediment which made him the target of bullies, and when he did fight back he is unfairly labelled as a problem child.
School
There is a real dramatic tension in the author’s narratives concerning school, another a frequently encountered image in the novel. School was both something he enjoyed greatly as he had a genuine love for reading and learning as well as a real gift for writing. However it was also a source of great grief for him as many conditions prevented him from enjoying his natural abilities, especially during his younger years. It was in school though where his gifts were first spotted by kind and innovative teachers, teachers that would teach the young Myers to channel his frustrations into a more productive and creative outlet.
Family
Family is another prevalent image in the narrative and the image of family occurs not just in the form of the biological, nuclear family but also adoptive, and chosen family. Because of the author’s colorful family background of having been adopted early on in his life, he makes no distinction between his adoptive parents and his biological parents with regard to how he respects them. He loved his parents, and was quite close with them; one things that drove him to develop and improve himself was to make his parents proud. There is a dynamic contrast however in the narrative in his growing years when he begins to rebel against his parents and established authorities; not because he disliked his parents or that he felt neglected, his rebellion stemmed from his inability to adequately process his frustrations from the injustices that he experiences.
Bullying
The author describes a considerable amount of bullying that he experiences in his life. There are numerous descriptions of persecution in its many manifestations from the overt, the subtle, and in some situations even those inflicted by his own incorrect beliefs. The author had experienced being bullied for his speech impediment and his love for reading. He learns to silence those that teased him for the way he spoke by battering them with his fists. In dealing with his fear of being teased for reading however he takes a decidedly different approach: he suppresses his love for books and puts on a show, pretending to love sports and roughhousing with other boys his age. Perhaps the most insidious and most damaging form of bullying that he had experienced was bullying he had inflicted upon himself. Myers lived with the self-limiting thought that being Black was an immense social disadvantage and that he had to restrict himself to unsatisfying blue-collar jobs.
