The Alienation of Imprisonment

This is not a movie about bars and locked doors. It is about being alone when you are not really alone and about being scared all the time.

This quote from the “Opening Note” in Steve’s notebook identifies the theme of Steve’s screenplay, or what he wants the film to be about. In both his notebook or journal entries and his screenplay, Steve uses words and situations to describe fear and alienation, or the feeling of being alone even when there are people all around you. Steve experiences both of these emotions intensely due to his imprisonment.

Steve has already noted some scary details about the trauma he endures in prison. His fear is so intense that, at times, he doesn’t even feel like he is connected with reality but, instead, that he has walked into the middle of a movie. Such reactions to trauma are natural for Steve, who is a beginning filmmaker. To survive and process his experience, Steve imagines events unfolding as a black-and-white movie, somewhat grainy. He writes the screenplay to show how he views what is happening around him. The film resulting from the screenplay will focus on the main character, Steve Harmon, and his feelings. The film title, Monster, shows Steve’s awareness that he is now perceived as an outcast from society. 

It’s funny, but when I’m sitting in the courtroom, I don’t feel like I’m involved in the case. . . . It’s only when I go back to the cells that I know I’m involved.

This quote comes from Steve’s notebook dated “Wednesday, July 8.” Steve spends his days in the courtroom and his nights in his cell back in prison, a routine that adds to his feeling of isolation and removal from the reality he once knew. With these words, written after the third day of his trial, Steve observes the lawyers and the judge doing their jobs and understands that he does not have a role in the action. While in court, he’s just a passive observer. However, once he’s back in his cell, Steve realizes that he did play a role in getting himself here and that his future is in the hands of others, which leaves him feeling powerless and despondent. 

In court, Steve can distance himself emotionally by observing the scene as a film director. However, prison is so intense that Steve is unable to remain detached. Steve is starting to take note of his fellow prisoners. Steve realizes that outwardly he and the other prisoners are all alike. A man named Sunset, who is waiting for a verdict in his trial, asks Steve to let him read the screenplay. Sunset especially likes the title. Steve bonds with Sunset because they both feel alienated, like monsters. 

What was going on between us, me being his son and him being my dad, is pushed down and something else is moving up in its place. It’s like a man looking down to see his son and seeing a monster instead.

This quote appears at the end of the section titled “Thursday, July 9th” and is a direct response to Steve witnessing his father, Mr. Harmon, crying. Steve writes this note after his father visits him in prison, an encounter that makes Steve realize that even his own father no longer trusts him. In Steve’s screenplay, the scene shows the process of separation, both physical and emotional, between Steve and Mr. Harmon. The visitors’ area of the Detention Center separates them physically, with Steve on the inside and his father on the outside of a tunnel. Mr. Harmon separates himself in time, by recalling his early hopes and dreams for his son. Steve looks to his father for reassurance, but Mr. Harmon turns his head and begins to weep.

Steve’s notes show that he feels guilty and self-defensive about his father’s grief. His fear that his father now sees him as a monster reveals the degree to which Steve has internalized the image of himself as an evil alien.

His image is in black and white, and the grain is nearly broken. It looks like one of those pictures they use for psychological testing, or some strange beast, a monster.

These words conclude Steve’s screenplay, the closing of which appears in the section titled “Friday afternoon, July 17th.” Steve’s trial ends with a verdict of not guilty but with a personal rejection that implies guilt. After the jury delivers the verdict, Steve Harmon turns toward Kathy O’Brien, his lawyer, with his arms outstretched for a hug. But she doesn’t accept his hug. Instead, she turns toward the table and then moves away from him. The quote comes from the camera instructions in Steve’s screenplay about the event. The screenplay calls for the image to freeze at this point and for the final credits to appear.

This final image in Steve’s movie reflects the unresolved and ambiguous ending to the story. The image shows how Steve thinks he appears to O’Brien, but it also implies that Steve at least partly accepts her point of view and sees himself as a monster. O’Brien’s turning away from Steve’s hug suggest she believes he is guilty. Steve’s last action in the movie is to ask for love, for an end to his sense of alienation. Unfortunately, his request is denied.

Identity Depends on Belonging

My job is to make sure the law works for you as well as against you, and to make you a human being in the eyes of the jury. Your job is to help me.

Steve Harmon meets his defense lawyer, Kathy O’Brien, just before his trial begins. Here, in the section titled “Monday, July 6th,” O’Brien explains to Steve her job and her strategy to win the case. O’Brien hopes to convince Steve to follow her instructions exactly. She sees her job as helping Steve project an identity to the jury, an identity that is innocent of the crime of which he’s been accused. To create this identity, O’Brien will associate Steve with certain people—trustworthy, respectable people, especially his parents—and try to separate or distance Steve from other kinds of people, especially from the seemingly toughened young men who committed the crime.

In this quote, O’Brien speaks bluntly to make Steve take the obstacles against him seriously. She understands that the odds are stacked against Steve. Steve will need to establish himself as a well-adjusted, innocent adolescent. However, as O’Brien’s words imply, the jury will most likely not even view Steve as a human being. As Steve adjusts to this harsh reality, he must fight the tendency to feel subhuman and struggle to be perceived as a good person who has done nothing wrong. Steve is in a continual process of self-definition.

I remembered Miss O’Brien saying that it was her job to make me different in the eyes of the jury, different from Bobo and Osvaldo and King. It was me, I thought as I tried not to throw up, that had wanted to be tough like them.

Here, in Steve’s note in the section titled “Friday, July 10th,” Steve reflects on the irony of his situation—O’Brien works to make him appear different from the very people Steve wanted to be similar to. Steve closes out the first week of his trial by mopping the prison floor and realizing he looks like the five other prisoners who are mopping their own sections of floor. The sight of the swirling brown water and the smell of the disinfectant make Steve want to vomit, but the guard warns him that if he does throw up, he will have to clean the floors all over again. Steve keeps mopping, desperately wanting to be away from this place and free from the suffocating fear that has taken over his mind.

Steve’s note reveals what he was thinking about as he mopped. The tone of the note is bitter and ironic. Steve admits that his own need to belong among the tough guys is part of the reason he now belongs with a prison work crew. His note also shows that he had a previous relationship with the three people who have already admitted to the crime: Bobo, Osvaldo, and King.

Miss O’Brien made me write down all the people in my life who I love and who love me. Then I had to write down the people who I admire. I wrote down Mr. Sawicki’s name twice.

Here, in Steve’s note at the beginning of the section titled “Tuesday, July 14th,” Steve thinks back on completing a task for his lawyer, O’Brien. Steve is about to go on the witness stand in his own defense, and O’Brien is preparing for the ordeal. The task O’Brien asks Steve to complete is designed to get Steve thinking about himself more positively. She understands that if he sees himself in a better light, he will exude that and project a positive image in court. The exercise reminds Steve of the people among whom he really belongs. The writing exercise also helps O’Brien find reliable character witnesses for Steve.

Mr. Sawicki, the man whose name Steve records twice, is the mentor of Steve’s film club, the peers with whom Steve most strongly identifies. Steve recalls what he’s learned in the film club as he composes his screenplay about the trial. Later in the trial, Mr. Sawicki appears on the witness stand as a witness to Steve’s good character. Mr. Sawicki’s testimony is a strong factor in the jury’s decision to find Steve not guilty. The jury identifies Steve with Sawicki and the film students, not with Steve’s co-defendant King.

Racism Enables Injustice

They’re saying that you pulled the trigger. King said the score was over but you turned back and shot Nesbitt. Why did you do that? I can’t figure it.

Here, in the screenplay portion of the section titled “Wednesday, July 8,” Detective Karyl questions Steve about his part in the robbery, violating his rights as he does so. Karyl and his partner, Detective Williams, interview Steve, a minor, without his parents or a lawyer present. They claim that James King has accused Steve of firing the murder weapon. Steve declares that he doesn’t know what Karyl is talking about and denies taking part in a robbery. However, Karyl’s accusation adds to Steve’s fear and sense of being powerless. The fact that the interview takes place without Steve’s parents or lawyer present also signals to Steve that these men hold more power over him than he can overcome.

Even though Detective Williams, Karyl’s Black partner, goes on to ask why they’re playing around with Steve when the case is already locked up, Williams goes along with Karyl’s bullying. In fact, being Black only makes Williams more threatening to Steve. The episode is an example of unjust police power and its corrosive effect on the community. Both detectives assume that no one will care how they treat a young Black man who is under arrest. 

Half of those jurors . . . believed you were guilty the moment they laid eyes on you. You’re young, you’re Black, and you’re on trial. What else do they need to know?

These words are spoken by Kathy O’Brien in the screenplay located in the section titled “Wednesday, July 8.” She feels discouraged because nothing is happening in court that speaks to Steve’s innocence. With these words, O’Brien frankly acknowledges to Steve that racism works against his chances for justice. O’Brien explains that juries tend to believe the prosecution and reminds Steve that Sandra Petrocelli, the prosecuting attorney, is accusing him of being a monster. O’Brien assumes that racism is a fact of life in the justice system and that Petrocelli will appeal to racist stereotypes in making the case against Steve.

Unfortunately for Steve, the two main witnesses for the State, Osvaldo Cruz and Bobo Evans, fit many racist stereotypes about criminals. Osvaldo is heavily tattooed. He brags about belonging to the Diablos, a violent gang. Bobo Evans is big, mean, and ugly. Petrocelli is easily able to make the jury think of them as monsters and to include Steve in the group, just because he is Black. 

I have trouble testifying against a Black man, if that’s what you mean.

Here, in the screenplay portion found in the section titled “Monday, July 13th,” Mrs. Lorelle Henry, an eyewitness to the crime, admits she is reluctant to help deliver a Black man into police hands because she fears racism might be the reason for his arrest. Mrs. Henry, a Black woman, testifies to being in the store and identifies James King as one of two men she saw arguing with Mr. Nesbitt, the store owner who was shot and killed.

Then Asa Briggs, King’s lawyer, gets Mrs. Henry to explain how she overcame her reluctance to testify. Briggs establishes that the police showed photos of James King to Mrs. Henry before asking her to pick him out of a lineup. Mrs. Henry admits that she was initially uncertain about her identification but stands by her identification now. Briggs then exposes the dubious methods the police used in getting the identification from Mrs. Henry, yet Mrs. Henry persists in supporting the identification she made. In the end, Mrs. Henry’s race works against Briggs’s client. The implication is that King must be guilty if even a Black person will testify against him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, at the beginning of this case the prosecutor spoke of monsters. She not only found them, but she brought them here to testify for the State.”

Here, in the screenplay portion of the section titled “Tuesday, July 14th,” Asa Briggs, the defense lawyer for James King, makes his closing argument, which focuses on the unreliable character of the State’s witnesses. Sandra Petrocelli had used the label “monster” as coded racial language. Monsters are not part of society and the Black defendants aren’t either. Asa Briggs appeals to the same racism as he reminds the jury of the people who have testified against his client. Briggs succeeds in discrediting the witnesses and establishing that the police case depends more on hearsay than on hard evidence.

However, Briggs does not succeed in making James King seem anything but guilty because the evidence against King is too strong to overcome. Asa Briggs does not even put James King on the witness stand because King’s account to the police has already been proved false. Unlike Steve Harmon, James King has no record of being a good student or any character witness to separate him from other young Black men in the eyes of the jury.

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