Racism in Caught in the Crossfire
Although the storyline was quite easy to understand, some themes behind the plot were difficult to understand. Gibbons announces his novel’s purpose from the very first page: "Hatred can be ordinary and evil can be commonplace”. In other words, racism is the main theme of the novel. He wants to demonstrate how the evil of racist violence strolls into Oakfield. Understanding why racism reigned in a town from a first-world country was difficult to comprehend. For this reason, we looked into some reasons that were explained in the novel.
In the novel, many causes are responsible for a racist atmosphere. They range from world events, such as the September 11 attacks, to economic and social changes, like the closure of the mill (where people from different local communities worked side by side), and individual actions, including the harassment of Rabia.
These are not the only reasons that push one to be racist. Some of the causes for being so are not elaborated in the novel. Racism in itself was difficult to understand. Most of us claim to understand racism quite well, but how well can one understand a phenomenon without living it? Living in a multiethnic society, we are generally tolerant people. One’s motives for being racist can be unfamiliar to us. For this reason, it was difficult to comprehend why certain characters such as John Creed and Colin Stone would adhere to nazi beliefs.
Explicitly, when Colin Stone looks at himself in the mirror wearing a Nazi SS uniform, it was quite difficult for us to understand why he would do so. It came as a shock to the reader because we were previously unaware that he was racist to that extent. His motivations for being a white supremacist were obscure to us. What pushed Stone to dream of Nazism?
John Creed would fall in that same category. Creed is a manipulative fascist leader. He disowned his sister because she married a man a different race from hers. His plan is to build a wall between the Triangle and
In the novel, many causes are responsible for a racist atmosphere. They range from world events, such as the September 11 attacks, to economic and social changes, like the closure of the mill (where people from different local communities worked side by side), and individual actions, including the harassment of Rabia.
These are not the only reasons that push one to be racist. Some of the causes for being so are not elaborated in the novel. Racism in itself was difficult to understand. Most of us claim to understand racism quite well, but how well can one understand a phenomenon without living it? Living in a multiethnic society, we are generally tolerant people. One’s motives for being racist can be unfamiliar to us. For this reason, it was difficult to comprehend why certain characters such as John Creed and Colin Stone would adhere to nazi beliefs.
Explicitly, when Colin Stone looks at himself in the mirror wearing a Nazi SS uniform, it was quite difficult for us to understand why he would do so. It came as a shock to the reader because we were previously unaware that he was racist to that extent. His motivations for being a white supremacist were obscure to us. What pushed Stone to dream of Nazism?
John Creed would fall in that same category. Creed is a manipulative fascist leader. He disowned his sister because she married a man a different race from hers. His plan is to build a wall between the Triangle and