Friday Night Lights Book Themes

Introducing Boobie Miles Since it’s creation in 1869, football has become a crucial piece to American society. On a typical Friday night in any small town, the sounds of the crowd, the band, and the cheerleaders can be heard from the dimly lit streets: this is the place where a town comes together as a community and becomes one through the hopes and dreams of the players on the field. During his “mid-life crisis,” author and reporter H.G. Bissinger abandoned his life in Pennsylvania and moved to the small on the map town of Odessa, Texas. During his time in the town, Bissinger was able to reveal “America’s small town values” (Denver Post), both good and bad. As he became more familiar with the town, Bissinger was able to develop a story from his introduction to Boobie Miles. Immersing himself into the town of Odessa during the 1988 Permian High School football season, H.G. Bissinger follows the development of Boobie Miles to encompass the moral of the Friday Night Lights in order to reveal the inner workings of the town, the team, and the dream and how Boobie is the essential piece to the development of those themes.
In the opening chapters of the book, Bissinger
In his afterword, Bissinger vocalizes that “of all the themes raised in the book, the tragedy of Boobie Miles is the most important, and the most enduring one” (394). Bissinger may have originally explored the town for a story of friday night lights, but what he got in the end was the tragic development of lost dreams. As he followed the development of Boobie Miles, H.G. Bissinger was able to encompass the moral of the friday night lights to reveal the underlying themes of the town, the team and the dream. With his heavy and enduring diction and ever constant tone changes, Bissinger revealed a heart wrenching story within a small, bigoted