Dasia

The Hate U Give By Angie Thomas Published in 2017

Introduction :

Throughout the last four years of college experience, I was an education major until this semester. Sitting with my advisor a week into the semester I realized that I had the most credits for a writing arts degree. I never in a million years thought I would be a writing arts major. Anything to do with writing and reading has always been my weakness. In fact, the main reason I switched majors is because I couldn’t pass the writing portion of the praxis course to continue in that field, ironic right ? So with that being said I am not a typical writing arts student, I rarely read books. Unless it’s a required reading for a course and even then I read for completion, nothing else. My recent reading catalog consists of reading quotes from social media and children books. But coming into this course I knew it would be different. We were able to pick our own books. I never had a professor let us pick our own books.I looked at it as ok, it’s like our own little book club, a very expensive one. But even having to pick our own books I knew I was in a group with seasoned writing arts students who would most likely pick a book I had no interest in. So I wanted to make sure I picked a book that I would enjoy reading. The first book I picked was a Fault In Our Stars by John Greene. But everyone read it so I decided to choose a book that no one picked already. I chose The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.

The book I selected, was the second book that we read in our group this semester, so while we were still new and learning how to do it the blogs “right way” or the way we would assume Koop would want us to do it , we were still playing “catch-up” trying to finish the first book blogs which is why most of the blogs for my book are incomplete. What a coincidence!

Part 1. Reading for

The Novel is about a teenage girl, Starr, who is try find her voice after witnessing the murder of her best friend, Khalil. Thomas takes us through real life problems to tell the story of Starr. She talks about racism, hate, and oppression.Starr tells the story in an urban conversational manner as if she’s talking to a friend. She reacts to events as they occur, leading to a wide range of emotions as she experiences them.

“Distinguishing what we customarily “read for” opens up the possibility of “getting” a text in multiple ways. First might be the possibility of getting the text on its terms–in greater levels of complexity and sophistication, beginning with the mimetic and diegetic/thematic dimensions of the text: the narrative as it is structured to impact its audience as “real” (mimetic) and expressing “thematic” (diegetic) meanings.”

Going into blog post 1 of the book , my group members included their reading for ..

Reading For:

Allison: I began the book reading for the main character Starr’s perspective on the world around her and how things like racism affect the way she is treated and perceived
Spencer: How we get brought up in the world has a massive effect on what kind of people we would become. Love can make way for more love, and the same can be said about hate as well.
Quaydasia: I choose this book, to bring awareness to a situation that is very real in Urban communities. I read from my own perspective being around this situation, growing up in Camden NJ going into this book with the idea of a basic typical of a

Robert McKee’s “Structure and Meaning” gives us a model for how to graph the structure of a narrative, he talks about a “Value graph” and how an audience can create a value graph as they read a text to help them identify these positive and negative purposes and contexts, which make up the controlling and counter ideas. The process of graphing helps the reader “get the text.” Below is my version of the Value Graph for The Hate U give

Starr is at Big D’s party with her friend Kenya. +
At the party, her friend Kenya ends up talking to other people and she ends up standing alone –
Khalil comes to talk with her for the first time in several months. +
All of a sudden gunshots are fired at the party and anyone run away-
Khalil offers to drive Starr home+
on the way home to get pulled over by the cops and Khalil gets shot –
On Starr’s first day back at her school, Williamson, she gets a flashback to Khalil getting shot. The flashback happens while she is talking with her boyfriend, Chris, in the hallway. –
The police ask Starr questions about Khalil getting shot. Starr’s mother, Lisa, is in the room for support.+
police because they mainly ask questions about Khalil selling drugs etc. and not the cop shooting him.-
The people that live in Garden Heights are angry because of Khalil’s death, as a way to express their anger they start protest +
These protest leads to riots –
Students at Williamson (mostly white) decide to have a protest for Khalil as a way to ditch school. –
Starr’s dad Maverick gets stopped by police outside his store.-
While Starr’s family is at Carlos’ house, Chris ( Starr’s boyfriend) comes to visit. +
Star dad doesn’t agree with this because Chris is white –
Starr anonymously does an interview and talks about the shooting and mentions the gangs in Garden Height+
The Gang leader, King gets mad and visits to threaten her family-
Chris tell Starr that he knows that she was the anonymous witness to the murder-
The day before Starr is going to be in front of the grand jury, shots are fired at her house and a brick is thrown through a broken window. –
Starr testifies for the grand jury +
Hailey talks bad about Khalil saying things like “He was probably gonna end up dead anyway”, they get into a fight –
Star and her family move to a safer neighborhood +
The grand jury has decided not to indict officer Brian Cruise Jr. in the death of Khalil Harris-
Starr, Seven, DeVante and Chris decide to riot because they are mad about the decision +
King throws a glass bottle with flaming cloth into Maverick’s store while Starr, Seven, Chris, DeVante are in it.-
Maverick comes with keys and the kids get safely out of the store +
The store burns down-
The neighbors tell police that King started the fire, and the police arrest King+

Robert Mckee in “Structure and Meaning” talks about a premise which is an open ended question that inspires the author to pen the story (112). The Premise in “The Hate U Give”

“ What happens when you live in a world where your race places a target on your back?” or “What happens when you witness your friend become a victim of hate?”

McKee describes the controlling idea as the “how and why life undergoes change from one condition of existence at the beginning to another at the end” (115).

The controlling Idea:

When you project love and positivity into the world and resist the temptation of feeding into the cycle of violence, you will receive love back.

Counter Idea:

The hate and racism that is projected onto youth, along with systematic inequality and economic disparity, forces the youth to learn to survive under unstable circumstances which can lead to poor decisions or violent situations that end in their own destruction. Cycle of violence

The Counter Idea is introduced in the first chapter of the novel when Khalil drives Starr home. He explains a Tupac lyric and anagram to Starr, “Thug Life” (The hate you give little infants fucks everybody). This is a negatively charged moment not only because of the negatively charged idea, but also because the scene follows a shooting at a party, and it precedes the murder of Khalil by police.

The Controlling Idea is shown at the end when Starr says loudly and publicly at the protest, “Khalil lived!” In doing so, she reclaims Khalil’s humanity and emphasizes that Khalil’s life had value. Overall, I would say the book is a very intriguing read, following all of these themes of hate breeding hate, survival of the fittest, and what to do when the ones we love are gone while trying to maintain their memories and avenge them in the process.

“identifies the positive or negative charge of the story’s critical value at the last act’s climax, and it identifies the chief reason that this value has changed to its final state” (115).

The last act’s climate for the novel was when the neighbors tell police that King started the fire, and the police arrest King.

Part 2: form and genre

There are various expectations when reading a piece of literature in a specific genre. In the case of Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, it falls in the category of young adult fiction and realistic fiction.

The main protagonist Starr Carter is a teenage girl who has just witnessed the murder of her friend at the hands of the police. This narrative fits the expectations of its genre. For example, many young adult novels follow a character who is in the age range of fourteen to eighteen. Usually, these novels have content that is also suitable for the age range of fourteen to eighteen as well. For example, The Hate U Give fits these expectations in its various ways of showing teenage life. In the very beginning, Starr and her friends are going to a party. In the scene, Starr is not enjoying her time and states, “I squeeze through sweaty bodies and follow Kenya… Between the headache from the loud-ass music and the nausea from the weed odor, I’ll be amazed if I cross the room without spilling my drink” (Thomas 1). This is one of the lighter instances within the book, however. Some of the scenes can be violent and triggering. Nonetheless, it is important for young readers to be aware of these events, even in a fictional setting, in order to gain empathy for when these events happen in real life. For example, shortly after the party scene, Starr and her friend Khalil are driving away. They are stopped by a police officer and Starr panics, running through all the rules that her father taught her in order to stay safe when stopped by law enforcement. Khalil does not follow all of these rules however and he is shot by the officer:

It’s not smart to make a sudden move. Khalil does. He opens the driver’s door. “You okay, Starr—”

Pow!

One. Khalil’s body jerks blood splatters from his back. He holds on to the door to keep himself upright.

Pow!

Two. Khalil gasps.

Pow!

This scene shows the brutal truth about how racism and corruption within the police force can affect the lives of so many people, including children.

The novel fits into the genre of realistic fiction as well because the events and violence that occur within the text can and have occurred in real life. The murder of black people at the hands of the police is not new and has been seen in cases like Emmett Till, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. This book brings awareness to the violence people of color face from a very young age and allows youth who may not know about it to become educated.

Semic Code: Every time there is an interaction with a police officer there is tension and Starr goes through the list of things her father told her to do in the case that she comes in contact with law enforcement. Whenever the police appear in the story the characters are wary and highly observant of them.

Hermeneutic code: Khalil and his ability to get justice. Will the cop get away with what he did? Will Starr heal and find herself?

Proairetic code: The violence of the police towards POC in real life; the genre being realistic fiction

These different elements of the novel play into Kaja Silverman’s intertextual codes, which she discusses in the chapter “Re-Writing the Classic Text,” in The Subject of Semiotics. According to Silverman, the hermeneutic code is a “code [which] inscribes the desire for closure and ‘truth’” (257). In the context of The Hate U Give, the driving force behind the plot and the need for closure is the suspense of whether or not Khalil will get justice and if the community can heal and break away from the violent cycle it is trapped in. In multiple places, other deaths within the community that Starr lives in are mentioned and normalized, including those with the police. These recurring instances relate to the semiotic code, mentioned by Silverman. Every time there is an interaction with a police officer there is tension. In fact, in order to stay calm and avoid becoming a target, Starr goes through the list of things her father told her to do in the case that she comes in contact with law enforcement. Whenever the police appear in the story the characters are wary and highly observant of them. This leads the reader to assume that it is a normal occurrence within the novel. However, it also adds to the suspense and need for closure on whether the violence will continue or if it can be stopped.

Another code that Silverman discusses is the proairetic code. She describes this as what “determines the sequence of events within a story. It is the ‘glue’ which makes certain clusters of events follow each other in a predictable order” (262). This means that in the novel, there is a specific tie that is holding the plot together and forcing it in a certain direction. One element that could be doing this is the violence of the police towards people of color in real life. A seme of modern day society is that the untimely death of many people of color are normalized. When they become victims at the hands of law enforcement, many times we, as a society, know how it will play out. It is a tragic reality that the events that occur are not just specific to the novel. Therefore, society has seen what happens when someone is killed by the police. Because the genre is realistic fiction, it would make sense for the murder of Khalil and the events that take place afterward to follow a similar pattern of what would happen in real life.

Part 3: Intertextual Codes

“The Semic Code defines characters, objects, and places through repetitively grouping a number of signifiers around a proper name.”

Semic Code

Defines characters, objects, and places through repetitively grouping a number of signifiers (“semes”: words and phrases) around a proper name. The Hate U Give was not only inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, but also largely by Tupac, his THUG LIFE tattoo, and his activism. The novel talks about Tupac Shakur’s concept of “thug life,” which explains the ongoing cycle of poverty . thug life means ‘The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody” which Starr and her friends talks about moments before Khalil is shot by the police.

Part 4: The Rhetoric of Narrative

Throughout the story, we see how the characters interact with each other, the setting of the story, the story itself, and with the actions that follow. But, what they can’t interact with is the narrator of this fine story, but the narrator can interact with a very special person: the reader themselves.

The narrator can showcase to us, the reader, certain events that one or more of the characters of the story does not know about, whether it’s things they don’t know right now or stuff that they’ll never know about. But to us, the reader of the story, we do get to know about them and help us better understand the story in our hands.

In the essay “Structure and Meaning,” Robert McKee elaborates on how an author turns an action within a narrative into an emotionally charged event that tells the audience more about the core of the character.

Reflection

Throughout the course of this semester “How writers read ” taught by Professor Kopp I STRUGGLED ALOT! This is not something I’m used to putting in my reflection of a course but it needs to be said. The class I assumed would be a “ little book club” kicked my ass. I was confused and behind 50% of the time but on the other 50% things seemed to just CLICK . My role as a reader has changed tremendously and developed due to the different methods and information taught by Kopp. I feel like I am able to read different pieces of literature and see a completely different side of them than I previously had. The four books read in my group this semester were Maus by Art Spiegelman , The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. The Midnight library by Matt Haig, and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. Driving through each book and analyzing and creating blogs for each book help me grasp Mckee terms like aesthetic emotion, premise, structure, controlling idea, and counter idea a little more each reading, I said in the beginning, this is my first time having to use my own mind to create and go against what the author wanted us to be. Professor Kopp has often referred to this as “sitting in the seat”. As Kopp asked us questions about the book, I began to uncover aspects of the books that I had not even known existed. I have learned multiple little things along the way, like how to create a Value graph. This is my first semester creating blog post and using WordPress which also adds to my knowledge of work.

Blogs

Book 1 blog 2 g1_book1_blog 2 – Google Docs

Book 2 blog 1 G1_Book2_B1 – Google Docs

Book 3 blog 4 G1_Book3_Blog4 – Google Docs

Book 4 blog 3 G1_Book4_Blog3 – Google Docs

Work cited

Thomas, Angie. The Hate U Give. Walker Books, 2017.

Hesse, Hermann. Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair. 1919. Translated by Damion Searls. New York: Penguin Books, 2013.

Jensen, Michael. “Integrity: Without it, Nothing Works.” Rotman Magazine (Fall 2009): 16-20.

Mamet, David. “Countercultural Architecture and Dramatic Structure.” On Directing Film. New York: Viking, 1991. 57-66.

McKee, Robert. “Structure and Meaning.” Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York: Regan, 1997. 110-131.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Antiquarius, La Vergne, 2020, pp. 139–140.

Phelan, James. “Introduction.” Living to Tell About It: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.

Porter, James. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Rhetoric Review. 5.1 (1986): 34-47.

Rabinowitz, Peter. “Truth In Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences.” Critical Inquiry. 4.1 (1977): 121-141.

Seitz, James E. “A Rhetoric of Reading.” Rebirth of Rhetoric: Essays in Language, Culture, and Education. By Richard Andrews. London: Routledge, 1992. 141-55.