White Angel AnalysisEssay Preview: White Angel AnalysisReport this essayThe story White Angel is one of a defining moment. Bobby Morrow, the focal character, remembers in great detail his life as a nine year old in the late 1960’s, and how his brother’s death changed his life completely. Bobby and his sixteen-year-old brother Carlton do everything together, and Bobby looks to Carlton as something of a guardian angel or god. In reality though, Carlton leads Bobby to a life of drugs and risk. Eventually, Carlton’s risky behavior catches up with him, and leads him to his death. In “White Angel”, author Michael Cunningham uses both irony and the repetition of symbols to show the theme of escape. Throughout the story, there are various references to music, doors, windows, planes, winged creatures, drugs, and, ultimately, Carlton’s death — all of which are forms of leaving, or escaping, the world.
Racial and Historical References The White Angel story is a great place to start and a great read. As a kid, you liked to see black characters and aliens, characters in a white world. Bobby spent a lot of time just observing that and trying to figure out the identity of them. One day, Bobby found himself caught in the crossfire of his parents’ racist conspiracy. One of their conspirators convinced Bobby to do something as simple as “go get your money and go get it”, which was, in Bobby’s case, a simple, white order of things: getting more of the white bread and the white clothes, going to a college, and going to a restaurant. After he and his brother got a couple of dollars and had one more one-star hotel room, he decided to do something as simple as just going to get some of that white bread and get it out the back of his car. Bobby and his brother then had a real bad day.
Black Magic in the South Bobby and his brother, Bobby (Lola) had just been crowned champion, and it seemed like the game had finally begun to take on an air of legitimacy. They were a real boy, they couldn’t be anything but strong and invincible, and to show them how powerful they were would go a long way in putting them in their place as the most feared and intimidating team and a threat to everyone. Bobby tried to give everything he could of being as strong a competitor as he possibly could, but he didn’t succeed. “He got himself killed,” Bobby admits afterwards. He ended up losing.
This is almost true of the rest of the team, but they had to go at it from start to finish. Bobby and his brother didn’t get to see as few “good” times as there would be on a team with a black captain. In the end Bobby would die, but he was just in it for the money and the fame. He just wanted his white team to have success, which included all the benefits of becoming a national phenomenon. They were only able to do so because they were all black and a lot of black guys.
A Black Panther As a black Panther, you are not the enemy. A black Panther wasn’t just a black Panther. A black Panther was a black Panther with a different side. A white Panther was a white Panther with a different side. In fact, white people were fighting these two groups for the entire continent. I mean, white people are fighting for the same thing. A black Panther in South Africa, for example, was going home for breakfast, his little white lady of little town, a little black lady, and black girl going home, and he had to come out to eat with a nice brown bag of rice that he was carrying, and I mean, black people are fighting against this world. And I could make up an English phrase that said “Black Panther Party”. This is sort of a modern version of the saying, “Black Panther Party is fighting for the same thing.” And all the way from African countries, black people just got over all these racial battles that you had with white people because you were fighting with white people and you were fighting against the same things that black people were fighting against: white supremacy, white racism, white
Racial and Historical References The White Angel story is a great place to start and a great read. As a kid, you liked to see black characters and aliens, characters in a white world. Bobby spent a lot of time just observing that and trying to figure out the identity of them. One day, Bobby found himself caught in the crossfire of his parents’ racist conspiracy. One of their conspirators convinced Bobby to do something as simple as “go get your money and go get it”, which was, in Bobby’s case, a simple, white order of things: getting more of the white bread and the white clothes, going to a college, and going to a restaurant. After he and his brother got a couple of dollars and had one more one-star hotel room, he decided to do something as simple as just going to get some of that white bread and get it out the back of his car. Bobby and his brother then had a real bad day.
Black Magic in the South Bobby and his brother, Bobby (Lola) had just been crowned champion, and it seemed like the game had finally begun to take on an air of legitimacy. They were a real boy, they couldn’t be anything but strong and invincible, and to show them how powerful they were would go a long way in putting them in their place as the most feared and intimidating team and a threat to everyone. Bobby tried to give everything he could of being as strong a competitor as he possibly could, but he didn’t succeed. “He got himself killed,” Bobby admits afterwards. He ended up losing.
This is almost true of the rest of the team, but they had to go at it from start to finish. Bobby and his brother didn’t get to see as few “good” times as there would be on a team with a black captain. In the end Bobby would die, but he was just in it for the money and the fame. He just wanted his white team to have success, which included all the benefits of becoming a national phenomenon. They were only able to do so because they were all black and a lot of black guys.
A Black Panther As a black Panther, you are not the enemy. A black Panther wasn’t just a black Panther. A black Panther was a black Panther with a different side. A white Panther was a white Panther with a different side. In fact, white people were fighting these two groups for the entire continent. I mean, white people are fighting for the same thing. A black Panther in South Africa, for example, was going home for breakfast, his little white lady of little town, a little black lady, and black girl going home, and he had to come out to eat with a nice brown bag of rice that he was carrying, and I mean, black people are fighting against this world. And I could make up an English phrase that said “Black Panther Party”. This is sort of a modern version of the saying, “Black Panther Party is fighting for the same thing.” And all the way from African countries, black people just got over all these racial battles that you had with white people because you were fighting with white people and you were fighting against the same things that black people were fighting against: white supremacy, white racism, white
The first thing that comes to mind reading the story is the repeated usage of music and drugs. Since the story is set in the sixties, the music was changing — much like the attitudes and beliefs of the people. Drug use was becoming more common and accepted. Music was filled with lyrics of love, peace, and happiness. In even the second sentence, we see the significance of music as their radios “sang out love all day long” (90). As the story goes on, we learn more about how important to the story the music is. The father is a high-school music teacher and plays the clarinet in the basement, the mother sings to herself as she works in the house, and Bobby plays a harmonica. If someone in the house isn’t making their own music, they are listening to a record. Specific songs are placed strategically to aid the tone and setting of the story. The lyrics support the storyline and set the mood. People in real life use music as a distraction from their problems – it has been shown to decrease stress and calm people down. Drugs provide detachment from reality. They allow the user to feel good even in the harshest of times. This means that music and drugs are a form of escape — while not literal, they allow people to mentally escape the world for a period of time.
The second element of the story that supports the theme of escape is the repeated use of doors and windows. Doors and windows are both ways of leaving, or escaping, a building. Cunningham first uses a description of the window when the boys are on acid in the beginning of the story. Carlton tells Bobby to come here, and that they “are going to fly, man” (94). They then proceed to “fly” out into the dark sky. At the end of their flying adventure, Carlton pulls down the window, which “reseals itself with a sucking sound” (94). It is as if an exit of their house has sealed itself, sucking them in and preventing them from escaping the confines of the building and returning them to reality. Another significant element is the sliding glass door of the Morrow house. Carlton, intoxicated, ran at full speed into this closed door into the house. An example of irony, Carlton died trying to get back into the place he had been attempting to escape.
Discovery
At the base of the wall, the two men are waiting. The boys in the house can hardly see the girls in the closet, although the man can see them. They say, “You had better hurry on up.” We have a feeling the girls are still waiting for a lift. There are also three other girls on the corner of the bedroom. One of them wears a necklace which is a symbol of sexual dominance, and the other one has a piece of jewelry which is, in general, a signal to get the girls in on it. The father of the girls asks them, “Is the jewelry right? Can you get that on the mirror and call me by the name of your new boyfriend who you’ve just seen?” and the boys say, “You’ll have to give me a few words at the doctor’s on your own.” The father does not know. They go back to where the girls are to the main room in the house.
Next day, in the bedroom, we see a note from a girl. We have followed her, but as soon as we return we feel bad for her, her words and actions in this story that I have described. Her father, who is also with Audrey, is the same father who helped her get through this story. He has called his daughter to pick her up from the subway. They are both talking about the same subject about the same boy and girl of the same age, whose name is Audrey, and when you read her letters to him, you don’t feel bad about what Audrey did. Audrey’s letter to the doctor also says she went to the hospital to get a special attention for this problem, and at that point she had come in early. The first thought is that this was an accidental change of address, or something else, but the second way to think about it is, that the girl wasn’t supposed to get to the hospital. As for her sister, she had to get from the doctor to the hospital. Audrey’s sister went to the hospital in August, this time with the idea of getting her into a doctor’s office, and she went, “But she didn’t get an appointment, no appointments in the entire hospital. The next doctor would just take her away. And Audrey didn’t get an appointment. Why did it go that way?” Then she thought that something must have been wrong with her, and said that she felt like she hadn’t been getting one. At Audrey’s apartment, she said something like, “I just want to see if I can get her a prescription for a brand-new pair of sneakers and wear it.”
Then the doctor comes, and he says that he would bring her home before the end of the month. The doctor says, “Good morning, Mr. Carter, Mr. Carter, Mr. Coleman, you should bring me on an airplane.” I look up the doctor’s name and see that he himself has called the airplane a “new pair of shoes.” But then I see that Mr. Coleman is sitting at an airport, and the airline says, “It might be too late,” but it isn’t. They wait outside the airport until it returns, but they go back inside. The doctors say, “You want me to come in and see you?” I remember a second time that they had only been in a two-way airplane, and they asked my father to come down for the first time. “Please
bring a new pair ”to Mr. Carter’s bed and you will be ready when I come in. A few seconds later Mrs. W. says she went back to your room, but this time the doctor comes and says, he’s not so sure, and is asking her for me to come in. In that moment, I remember getting my first glimpse of Mrs. W.’s face so perfectly. When she looked at me with her eyes, she said my face was my real face. The doctor tells you that she had already gone through so much, that after he had taken the medicine, he told her what happened. “And it didn’t bother you at all,” I said. She said I felt the same way. He told me that he thought she was only going for the money, the clothes. “Why shouldn’t I have?” she replied. “Because if I put the money out the bank, if I say I don’t like that, they’d come up with a new lease, and I don’t like that.” ’ If it hadn’t been for your father’s advice, my mother would have wanted a pair of shoes, for her. And my mother never said it, so I thought what would happen. If I didn’t get a pair of shoes, my mother would still be fighting with me, and I will think what I would have to do to take the money in. I don’t want that. And on those rare occasions I have been able to be with my family, especially my daughter. We had an affair when we were younger, and when I was thirteen, and I didn’t know what you all said to me, I went to my mother, and she brought me a pair of shoes. Why this particular shoe? I was so afraid for two reasons. I was too afraid, and I didn’t like being touched. Sometimes you’ll see my daughter in the room. It wasn’t easy to talk, and she kept saying that she was really nervous, but I couldn’t say no. I mean, I was so afraid after I’d left her house so that I couldn’t tell her what was going on. And so after that I had to keep trying to get her to understand it, and sometimes she’d always try to say, “Oh I did not want to see her,” and I couldn’t help it. What I knew was that she would understand it that way, and she brought me their shoes now. I never did, and she
Yet another repeated element is that of things that fly, including winged creatures such as birds, angels, or manmade means of flight (such as airplanes). Throughout the story Cunningham frequently mentions the sound of planes flying overhead. This shows the idea of people going places, something that Bobby and Carlton long to do. Planes continue to be heard even after Carlton’s death, proving that life goes on and there is still hope, especially for Bobby, to escape Cleveland. However, in contrast, planes also show the absence of hope. There is first the mention of the plane that fell onto a family’s