Monster

At first glance, Walter Dean Myers’ novel, Monster, fascinated me with its monochrome cover design featuring many fingerprints, which, I believe, is intended to resemble a “negative” of a criminal record. However, the truly fascinating design that casts a powerful spell on readers is the novelist’s unique arrangement of how the story is to be told. Instead of using the traditional form, bildungsroman, novelists usually adopt to write about a topic of this kind, Myers created a mixture of movie script and diary that allows/forces readers to distance/involve themselves from/into the life of the protagonist. This way of telling a story was something I had never seen before and gave me a totally new experience of reading.

The whole story is about a black youth, Steve Harmon, who has done nothing but is caught on the spot of a murder and a robbery at a drugstore, and who struggles to prove his innocence. In his first court session, he is called “Monster” by the prosecutor, Sandra Petrocelli. After numerous sessions, Steve, with the help of his lawyer, Kathy O’Brien, succeeds in proving himself not guilty. However, he can no longer return to his former life because the world around him has been forever changed by this unfortunate and unforgettable incident—no matter how undeserved it might seem.

While reading the book, a quandary gradually arose in my mind. If Steve is innocent, why can Petrocelli find so many pieces of evidence and the so-called witnesses profess that Steve is involved in the murder? To be frank, even I have for a moment suspected Steve’s innocence after reading the testimonies accusing him of being a co-murderer, even though he keeps emphasizing that he has no relation with the whole incident. Isn’t it absurd that he should be accused of a crime that he has never committed? The book does give us an answer to why there are people willing to fake their testimonies. It’s all because that they can get commutation if they do so. They are so egoistic that they don’t care to devastate a young man’s future just for their own cause. Rather than Steve, aren’t Petrocelli and the witnesses the real” Monsters”? Moreover, why is Steve accused of this crime unjustly? Is it because of his malicious attitude, vicious behavior, or his criminal record? In fact, neither of the above is. It is, I believe, his skin color and his family status that make him “suspicious”. In the real world, we have heard of the news of this sort for numerous times, which we normally brand as racial discrimination. I believe that the author uses Steve to exemplify the injustice that not only the blacks but also all the “colored” races have encountered.

Though Steve is “bleached” by the final verdict, he finds that people around him have changed their attitude toward him. Moreover, when the sentence is out, he turns to hug O'Brien with rejoice. Nevertheless, she turns her head away, which implies that she doesn’t feel happy, or even embarrassed about winning the case. In other words, she thinks that Steve is guilty even though she has to believe he is innocent. When a person loses other people’s trust, can the court’s verdict get it back and make others believe in him/her again? The answer Monster gives us is “No.” Even though they want to believe in Steve again, the bias that has been established in their hearts are very hard to break. Day after day, Steve will be isolated. It is like a snow-white T-shirt spilled with coffee. Even we try our best to bleach it, the stain will still be one way or another left on it. When we see the T-shirt with the stain, we may try hard to ignore it, but we are still conscious of it. After a period of time, it will be deserted in our wardrobe, or even be cast away.