Analysis Of Night John By Gary Paulsen

NightJohn, a story written by Gary Paulsen, expresses the story of Waller, the master, who owns slaves to work on the fields and take on other duties. To keep things in order he will punish other slaves for breaking a rule.This will cause other slaves to feel frightened and make them not disobey anymore. The slaves wouldn’t follow the rules if they knew they wouldn't get punished so it’s very important to the slave owners to punish their slaves when they misbehave. In the story, there are multiple times when Waller punishes slaves and it scares or intimidates other slaves. For example, slaves know not to run away because of what happens to slaves if they get caught. They also know not to learn how to read or write because they know that Waller will punish them bad if he does find out. Lastly, slaves also know not to go near the master’s house because, like Alice, they will get whipped very …show more content…
On page 46 it states, “..-it’s wrong to run. Not wrong because it’s wrong. But wrong because nobody ever gets away.” This example from the text tells me that not only Sarny, but all slaves know not to run because as it says, “...nobody ever gets away.” Another example from the text is on page 47-48 and it states, “Jim, he ran at night too but it didn’t help…..the dogs followed him all the way up. The hands said that one dog even got up and ran on the top rail of the fence. Only took half a day and they caught Jim….. The master set the dogs on him and they tore and ripped what they could reach until there wasn’t any meat on Jim’s leg or bottom. The dogs ripped it all off, to hang in shreds.” By what happened to Jim because he tried to escape, the other slaves know not to run away unless they want the dogs to come after them. All of my examples prove that slaves are very afraid of running away because of knowing what Waller will do to them if they