The Man Who Was Almost A Man Analysis

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In the story “ A man who was almost a man “, the main character is a young boy who is trying to show that he is a man. During the story, the boy tries to tell himself that if he has a gun he will be a man. Throughout the story he doesn’t develop as a character and stays the way he is. The author makes him stick to this path by taking away anyway for him to develop and accept what he has done, and fully understand what he has done. During the beginning of the story, you can see that he is controlled by his mother since he cannot even hold his own money, and his mother holds on to it for him and doesn’t really let him take it, even though he has worked for it. When his mother does this, it does not give him any room to grow and make decisions all by himself and learn how to save and spend money. When the author puts this in the story, it molds the character into someone who does not know how to control himself, and instead be controlled by others, like his mother and like when he wants to be a man but the gun is keeping him from being one. The gun is the thing controlling him and keeping him from making the right decision.…show more content…
When his mother asks where he has been, he tells her he was talking with his friends, although he was at the store trying to buy a gun. Also, when he kills the mule, he tries to lie about it and say that it was all the mules fault and didn’t involve a gun even though there was a gun hole in the mule. The author makes him keep making this mistake by giving him child-like reasons to lie. He is scared of his father’s beatings and doesn’t like to be blamed for things. Throughout the story, the Protagonist keeps making this same mistake and digging himself deeper into a hole. Because of this hole, he is unable to climb out of it and actually progress as a
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