Character Development Blog Second Post

In the book Bronx Masquerade, there were many characters who made tremendous changes.  The character who I think was developed the most throughout the story was Tyrone. First we see this kid named Tyrone. Tyrone is this very judgmental person and has a worry that he may die one day. He has this friend named Wesley who also has fear of dying and they both just want to survive. He seemed to care a little less about school then Wesley considering he said "school ain't nothin' but a joke," is evidence that he does not care about school which is probably the kind of attitude that drives his character because of where he lives and what he is exposed to. I also wanted to say that he never really cared for his classmates and that him and white people are have some sort of separation created.

Once we start to looking at the other students poems. As he listens he gives these little comments at the end. Comments like after listening to one of Janelle's poems, "I'm starting to feel like I know Janelle..." As he listens to some of these great poems, he feels connections between some of the poets like Janelle. When he listens to these poems he learns something different about each person who is reading that poem. Like what they want to do in life or maybe something that is effecting them very badly. Sometimes it can be from something that he has done. Like when Tanisha said "If Tyrone calls me "caramel cutie" one more time, I'll scream." Then once she read her poem he had said afterwards, "Now I know why the sista hisses every time I called her "caramel cutie." After listening to her poem, he obviously listened to it and understood what message Tanisha was trying to give. That is what made him change or in this case made him realize that he shouldn't call her that. That is how affected these poems can be.

When you get towards the end of the book when Tyrone takes over in the last chapter before the epilogue. Tyrone says something interesting, "It was kinda sad seeing the walls all bare." After looking at this quote, I knew that Tyrone had finally felt the importance of his school and what his fellow classmates were coming up with on Open Mike Fridays. The poems were obviously important to him and is what brought everyone in the class together no matter who they were, or what they looked like, and what their background was.

The setting of this book affects Tyrone and the story because, Bronx is not a healthy neighborhood, especially for teenagers. This probably brought out the worst of him considering his father was killed and he thinks that he will be killed soon enough. The characters affect him and the story because, his school welcomes a lot of people. In the story some characters we see are Hispanics, blacks, whites, and some are even Italian. He thinks that there has to be this separation between some cultures in his school just because he thinks that is the way things should be and he probably isn't the only person who feels that way. Once people shared their poem, that was what brought everyone together and that separation didn't seem to take affect as much anymore. The conflicts affected Tyrone and the because, sometimes a poem can share more feelings then others and can send messages to the people who are listening. If some people share a conflict their having and express it in their poem, when Tyrone gives his feedback he does have emotions towards peoples conflicts and sometimes feels for them. Lastly, plot impacts the story and Tyrone because, someones backstory and poem leads to the problems some other people are having which leads to the book introducing more of peoples back stories like Tyrone's when he comments on all the poems.