The Land Taylor Analysis

In “The Land,” by Mildred D. Taylor, two black men defeat many obstacles to achieve their dreams. Paul-Edward Logan, a son of a white man and black woman, is an oblivious boy who undergoes a dramatic change. Other characters like Mitchell, Paul’s best friend, Edward Logan, Paul’s father and Robert Logan, Paul’s brother, take part in Paul’s story of completing his dreams. The story is set in the South during the times right after the Civil War, when racism was at its peak. Through the course of the story Paul-Edward faces a massive problem of being a black man who’s father is white, and also having the light color skin like a white man. He is not accepted in either racial group, which makes him feel that he has no place in society. In the beginning …show more content…
For example, one day right before Paul’s twelfth birthday, Paul’s daddy had guests over for dinner. Paul-Edward’s mother instructed Paul not to sit at the table, a job that his father usually takes out time to perform. This made Paul very angry at the fact that his father didn’t even have the decency to tell him, himself, not to sit at the table. Instead he used Paul’s mother, so he would not have to tell Paul this face to face. This is retold in the story on page 50 where it states, “Eventually there came the time on a late summer afternoon just before my twelfth birthday when folks came to visit… My daddy hadn’t even bothered to tell me himself not to sit at his table. He had left that to my mama, and I resented not only him for it, but her too.” Paul is frustrated because he can not understand why Robert and his brothers can sit at his daddy’s table, but Cassie and him cannot. He feels as though his father only acknowledges him as his son when no folks are present. Another example to prove Paul’s obliviousness, is a time during the fall of Paul’s school years. Paul has come home from thanksgiving break only to find that Appaloosa, his horse, had seemed to be “manhandled,” this proven by the numerous amounts of bruises and cuts he was modeling. It turns out though that Robert had allowed the Waverly boys to ride Appaloosa in a careless way! This …show more content…
He is no longer the unmindful boy who didn’t know how blacks are treated in this country. In the end he is a wise man, who has strategically overcome many obstacles to achieve his ultimate goal of owning land. One theme in this story is finding out your true destiny. At the beginning of the story, Paul-Edward Logan was just a boy who had no dream but to one day own his daddy’s land. And then comes the time when Paul rides in a horse race. When Paul's father forbids him from racing, Paul disobeys his father. This was his inciting incident, a life changing event that makes you into who you are today, that turned Paul from a boy to a man. This relates to life, because whether it is having our parents’ house or taking over the family business, we all have a dream when we're young. But then there is this inciting incident that makes us realize that as an adult we don’t want to get something handed to us because we are family. We want to work to get something of our own that you can proudly say that you have earned it. And that is the defining moment in everyone’s lives where they realize their true destiny. Another theme in this story is shown in a quote by an unknown source. This quote states, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… It’s learning to dance in the rain.” Paul-Edward faced one of the most hurtful things in life, being betrayed by his own brother, Robert. But