Imagine you walk into a store to buy a mint, and you don’t find the one that you want. So you leave the store. The next day you hear in the news that the store clerk/owner has been robbed and murdered. You hear a knock on the door, and you open it to see two police officers. They ask you to come to the station for some questions. You refuse, so they put you in handcuffs. Now suddenly you're on trial for the store owners murder. That was the exact situation of Steve Harmon. In the book Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, there is a African American boy named Steve Harmon. Steve is a normal boy, but he lives in a bad neighborhood. Just because he was in the store that day, and he’s been bullied by one of the suspects before, he is on trial for taking part in the murder of Mr.Nesbitt. One of the many themes that goes on throughout the story is injustice. Steve didn’t do anything wrong that day, but he was on trial with the odds stacked against him due to racial bias in the jury.
One part of the book that shows injustice is when Steve thinks to himself in the jail cell. “The incredible story of how one guy’s life was turned around by a few events and how he might spend the rest of his life behind bars.” Steve is sorry for himself. Steve knows he’s going to jail for something he didn’t do. Which relates to my point about injustice. He didn’t do the crime yet he still might do the time. He has no experience in this position. It’s his first time on trial, so he doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s stuck in a place where they are talking about him being guilty for something he didn’t do, while all he can do is sit there and listen.
Later in the story Steve says to himself, “What did I do? I walked into a store like anybody else. Why am I on trial for something everyone can do?” At this point you can tell steven is feeling victimized. He’s is extremely resentful towards the prosecutors. He didn’t do anything wrong yet he’ll be spending the rest of his life in jail, and with people that actually did do something wrong. He feels like he is being treated unfairly because of who he is. All he did was look for mints and now he’s accused of being one of the accomplices of the murder and robbery. Even though he didn’t make a dime from the robbery. It’s the perfect example of injustice in a system created around the idea of justice.
In conclusion, the story Monster relates to issues going on today. In the news there have been a lot of police brutality and injustice. It gives people a sick feeling knowing that this happens all the time. People being wrongly persecuted and put in jail. Just think, What if it was you? What if you were the person wrongly persecuted?
