Now&Then

Author's Note~ This is a text analysis piece on how the short story After You My Dear Alphonse, stays true to its time as well as how it affects its characters.

Imagine being the one who was assumed to be poor just because of their skin color, or the person who is always being bullied just because of two colors, black and white.  In the story After You My Dear Alphonse, by Shirley Jackson, Boyd, a young African-American boy, is at a friend’s house eating lunch.  Johnny’s mom, Mrs. Wilson, assumes Boyd is poor and offers clothes and then asks personal questions assuming that his family is close to poverty.  Jackson was able to show how there were racial discriminations in the time period and how it affected the characters in the story as well as how it related to its time period.

Mrs. Wilson, she tried proving that her family was so much better than others, especially Boyd’s’.   She figured that they were poor just because they were African-American.  Now look at today our president is African-American, that means that even though they have a different color skin it doesn’t mean that they can’t do what anyone else can do.  Mrs. Wilson thought that her boy shouldn’t be playing with Boyd as well.   She used some snarky comments to make Boyd feel bad.

Mrs. Wilson seemed to say something to Boyd and then Boyd would prove her wrong.  Boyd liked Johnny but you  could tell that he felt kind of unwelcome because of what Mrs. Wilson was saying.   They way Mrs. Wilson was saying things made it defiantly obvious that this story was in the 1940’s.  You could also tell that Johnny was getting mad at his mom for saying the mean things to Boyd. “And he certainly has to be strong to do that—all that lifting and carrying at a factory.”“Boyd’s father doesn’t have to,” Johnny said. “He’s a foreman.”  Here Mrs. Wilson assumes that Boyd’s dad has a factory job that pays little.

Saying mean things to people of different skin color happens all the time.  In the book Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson, two sisters were forced to do work and chores and if they did something wrong they were harassed by their owners.   This book stayed true to the time period as well as the story with Boyd.  Back then there were many racial discriminations going around, and there still are some today but less.

This story was able to stay true to its time period really well and that is what makes the story so great.  The author was also able to explain how the things Mrs. Wilson said affected Johnny and Boyd.  Jackson was able to show how racial comments affect people and it made readers think about what they say, and what people said back then.