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Warriors Don’t Cry

 Melba Patillo Beals
 

Key Facts

 
full title ·  Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
 
author · Melba Patillo Beals
 
type of work · Memoir
 
genre · Nonfiction, memoir, biography
 
language · English
 
time and place written · 1990s, The United States
 
date of first publication · 1994
 
publisher · Pocket Books
 
narrator · Melba Patillo Beals
 
point of view · The book is the story of Melba's teenage life, and the adult writer, Melba, is both the narrator and the protagonist. Melba tells the story from the first person point of view.
 
tone · Restrained anger
 
tense · Past
 
setting (time) · Early 1950s
 
setting (place) · Little Rock, Arkansas
 
protagonist · Melba Patillo
 
major conflicts · The attempt made by Melba and eight other African-American students to integrate into Little Rock High School
 
rising action · The Supreme Court rules in Brown v. the Board of Education that separate schools are not equal; Melba volunteers to go to the all-white Central High School; Melba and eight other African-American students enter Central High.
 
climax · Ernie becomes the first black student to graduate from Central High School.
 
falling action · Unable to return for a second year at Central High School, Melba moves to California and lives with a white family; she becomes a journalist and reports on injustices around the world.
 
themes · The shifting of power through resistance, the prominence of race relations
 
motifs · Self-reliance, the loss of innocence
 
symbols · Central High School, Melba's Easter dress, journalism
 
foreshadowing · After Melba's grandmother rescues her from the all-white bathroom and sneaks her past the police, they drive away from Central High School. Melba wonders what it is like to go to school there. This foreshadows her eventual enrollment at Central and the subsequent struggles that she will endure.
 
 
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