Five Days Literary Elements

Synoptic revolutionary book

Set in 2015 in the context of Freddy Gray’s death

First-person narrative

Sad, optimistic, disheartening, horrifying

The central character is Freddy Gray.

The major conflict is when Gray is arrested and mishandled by the police because he possesses a knife illegally. Gray dies five days later, and a massive uprising follows each day to protest his arrest and death.

The climax comes when the story of Gray reveals to readers that African Americans live in institutionalized poverty.

Poverty foreshadows Gray’s death. For instance, Gray owned a knife illegally to use it as a weapon for crime to put food on the table.

Racism is understated in the book. Even though Gray is assumed to be a criminal, the police should humanely handle him and present him before the court of law for justice. However, Gray is mishandled by the police because he is black, and he dies due to a coma in five days.

The story alludes to racism and poverty that pushes African Americans to a life of crime.

The author uses sight imagery to help readers see the brutality of the police while handling Gray. One of the characters that watched the news about the mishandling of Gray by the police is Tawanda. The author writes, “She had watched all the shaky cellphone videos of Gray being dragged by the police, and Tawanda felt her soul pierced every time she heard his creams blare from the television – not just in sympathy for Gray but herself, for she wished she had gotten to hear her brother's voice, even his screams, in his last seconds.”

The main paradox is that the police who are supposed to protect human rights are on the front line in abusing the same rights when making an arrest.

There is parallelism between Gray’s mishandling by the police and the daily mistreatment the African Americans go through in America.

N/A

Police brutality is incarnated as inhumane.