Sunday, November 27, 2011
"I Dont Wish Nobody To Have A Life Like Mine" response #1
Before I even started this book I was very intrigued by the idea of it. The idea of a man working in prison simply writing about all of the experiences he has had teacher the high schools in jail. As I started this book, I was not disappointed. I found my self in the position of not being able to put the book down because most of the stories are so interesting and would obviously only be found in a prison. There has never been a time that I have read about something similar to the stories in the book. the first thing that surprised me the most was how inmates can easily break the rules in prison. One rule that was broken was on someones 21st birthday cigarettes were passed around to him for celebration. When I think of Jail I would never think that stuff would get around. Another inmate made wine from scratch and shared it with the birthday boy as his gift. One thing I did realize is that things are not taken for granted in prison. The birthday boy was most excited when someone shared oreos with him. Something that seems so simple to me and would never be the making point of my birthday, is the biggest thing to an inmate in prison. Another thing that surprised me was how opened these boys were tot ell their stories. The birthday boy, Ray, told the author all about his life, about his drug addict of a mother and his short stays with many different foster families, he even mentioned the time he was raped. This boy was was living on the street a lot of his life. He was basically set up for prison based on how he was raised. When he was living on the streets he had to commit robberies to get by. The robberies were what landed him in prison. The most amazing thing about this boy is that he knows that his life was bad and he would rather live the way he does then anyone else. To quote the title of the book, he said, "I just hope God gets a light at the end of the tunnel for people like me, I don't wish nobody to have a life like mine" (26). I'm excited to continue reading this book because of all the interesting stories in here. All of them will be unique and most likely thing I could never imagine
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Sounds like an interesting book. I'm surprised by how open the inmates were with each other on talking about their past and what caused them to be in prison in the first place. I always thought inmates would try to act tough in front of each other to show that they weren't going to become a target. Did the book ever talk about other issues involving prisons? Or is this book about more focused on how not to land yourself in prison?
ReplyDeleteThe main focus of the book was an outsiders view of prison. The author was a teacher there, so he gave his view on what went on in prison every day. Each chapter was a new story, or person. He did show a lot of the inmates interactions in his class room. For the most part a lot of the inmates had respect for each other within the classroom. This also was not state prison, this was the place the inmates go to before state jail, so it is not as violent.
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