“Small Great Things,” by Jodi Picoult is about a black nurse who is put on trial for murder when a white supremacist’s baby dies in her care. The speakers of the book are split between the author, and three characters: Ruth Jefferson, Turk Brauer, and Kennedy McQuarrie. Ruth is a black nurse, Turk is a white supremacist, and Kennedy is a defense attorney. The subject of the book is racism and discrimination. It focuses on the decisions of the characters and the results of their actions. The occasion is set in 2015 to 2016, in New Haven, Connecticut. Social attitudes that affect the occasion are the racial biases that occur in Ruth’s everyday life because of her skin color. The main audience of the book is adults. More specifically, the audience
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The point of view of the story changes because the narrators alternate between Ruth, a black nurse, Kennedy, a white woman, and Turk, a white man. Each narrator symbolizes a different end of a spectrum of discrimination. Ruth is at one end, because she experiences severe racial prejudice directed at her because she is black. Turk is at the alternate end, seeing as he is a white supremacist, and bases his life around these ideals. Kennedy falls in between, because while she isn’t blatantly racist, she doesn’t notice or acknowledge the advantages she’s been given because of her race. The author of the book is a white woman, which hinders the effectiveness of the theme, which focuses on the experiences that people of color go through that those who are white can’t fully comprehend. She addresses the issues, but does so in a way that is unrealistic and slightly biased. Throughout the story, people go through major mental changes in short amounts of time. At the end of the book, characters completely reverse their attitudes and earn redemption by their peers, which is nearly impossible in real life. While some life experiences are impactful enough to cause someone to drastically change their viewpoints, this is unrealistic in the setting, considering the character’s background. The author, Jodi Picoult, gives another of her characters a change of attitude near the end of the book. A white woman suddenly becomes able to understand the life experiences of people of color, and preaches that she shouldn’t be able to speak for black people, because she herself isn’t black, and therefore can’t truly understand their feelings. This was somewhat hypocritical, considering the author is white and writes from the viewpoint of a black person. The author does as good of a job as she can, yet her experiences still only give her
The point of view of the story changes because the narrators alternate between Ruth, a black nurse, Kennedy, a white woman, and Turk, a white man. Each narrator symbolizes a different end of a spectrum of discrimination. Ruth is at one end, because she experiences severe racial prejudice directed at her because she is black. Turk is at the alternate end, seeing as he is a white supremacist, and bases his life around these ideals. Kennedy falls in between, because while she isn’t blatantly racist, she doesn’t notice or acknowledge the advantages she’s been given because of her race. The author of the book is a white woman, which hinders the effectiveness of the theme, which focuses on the experiences that people of color go through that those who are white can’t fully comprehend. She addresses the issues, but does so in a way that is unrealistic and slightly biased. Throughout the story, people go through major mental changes in short amounts of time. At the end of the book, characters completely reverse their attitudes and earn redemption by their peers, which is nearly impossible in real life. While some life experiences are impactful enough to cause someone to drastically change their viewpoints, this is unrealistic in the setting, considering the character’s background. The author, Jodi Picoult, gives another of her characters a change of attitude near the end of the book. A white woman suddenly becomes able to understand the life experiences of people of color, and preaches that she shouldn’t be able to speak for black people, because she herself isn’t black, and therefore can’t truly understand their feelings. This was somewhat hypocritical, considering the author is white and writes from the viewpoint of a black person. The author does as good of a job as she can, yet her experiences still only give her