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Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the movie’s major themes. 

Everyday Racism  

Though much of the violence that Elwood encounters at Nickel Academy is shocking and dramatic in nature, the film also emphasizes the more mundane forms of racism that marked everyday life for Black people in the Jim Crow Era. Elwood’s adolescence is punctuated by typical childhood experiences such as reading comic books and going on dates, and by the everyday racism that he encounters on the streets of Tallahassee. In one notable scene, a police officer places a young Elwood and several other Black youths in a “lineup” on the sign of a road, while an older white man examines them with undisguised hostility, poking at them rudely with his cane. The scene ends abruptly as the police officer walks the older man to the car. The nature of the older man’s complaint is never clarified in the film, which presents this scene as just one of many small incidents of mundane, but nevertheless deeply sinister, racism.  

Additionally, in one of the quick vignettes that depict Elwood’s adolescence in Florida, he watches as two Black children walk down a sidewalk, jumping into the street when they see a white couple walk by. This action is, for them, seemingly automatic, suggesting that the racial hierarchy enforced by Jim Crow Laws is almost instinctive for Black children, who have experienced racist oppression since being born. Later, Hattie reveals that her own father died under suspicious circumstances in a prison cell after he was arrested because a white woman accused him of getting in her way. Her father, Hattie explains, was simply tired after working his third job, failing to heed the racist laws that prioritized white people. The woman’s accusation of a nonexistent “crime” results in his brutal death, suggesting that these everyday incidents of racism can and do have horrific consequences.  

Complicity  

Not all white characters in the movie are as openly antagonistic as Spencer, the violent superintendent of Nickel Academy who resorts to abuse, torture, and murder in order to maintain his position of authority. Other figures of authority at the school appear, at first, relatively sympathetic, but they nevertheless bear culpability in the exploitation and abuse that takes place there. Mrs. Hardee, for example, is the wife of the director at the school. She presents herself as a kind and generous woman, encouraging Turner and Elwood to swim in her pool and donating a box of books to the students. Turner even jokes that he wouldn’t mind being adopted by Mrs. Hardee, and the two work slowly to prolong their time at her house, which allows them to avoid the more difficult work of fruit-picking. Nevertheless, and despite her apparent kindness, Mrs. Hardee benefits from the exploitation of students at Nickel Academy. Her comfortable lifestyle is maintained, in part, by the profits the school makes from the students’ labor and from selling “surplus” supplies intended for Black students. Further, she benefits from their labor directly, illegally using students as a source of free housekeeping and yard work. Elwood notes that she uses them like personal “slaves.” Despite her surface-level kindness, Mrs. Hardee is very much part of the broader system that exploits students at Nickel.  

Similarly, Harper, a young white employee at the school, treats Turner and Elwood with relative informality and even friendliness. Working with Harper, Turner feels, is superior to the back-breaking work in the fields, and Harper speaks openly with Turner and Elwood about the abuses that take place at the school, noting that conditions were even worse in the past. However, Harper’s true colors emerge under pressure. In the days before inspectors arrive at the school, Harper bosses Turner and Elwood around like any of the other staff. In the end, when he is called upon to capture or kill Turner and Elwood in their attempt to escape from the school, he does not hesitate to shoot Elwood, murdering him despite their past familiarity. Regardless of the appearance of friendliness, racism is the underlying structure of the relationship between Black and white characters in the film, and Mrs. Hardee and Harper are fully complicit in the school’s abuses. 

Friendship  

When Elwood asks Turner how he would escape from Nickel Academy were he to make the attempt, Turner insists that he would try to avoid doing what the staff would expect. Instead of laying low in the swamp and trying to escape up north, Turner claims that he would steal some clothes from a washing line and head south, putting as much space between himself and the search dogs as possible. Last, and most importantly, he notes that he would make the trip alone, as a friend would only serve as dead weight. Here, Turner presents himself as something of a lone wolf, a pragmatic figure who would leave others behind to ensure his own success. And yet, when Turner finally makes his escape at the end of the film, he not only brings Elwood with him, but escapes in order to save Elwood after hearing rumors of the staff’s plan to execute him. Friendship proves to be the one value that the otherwise cynical Turner values above all else. He breaks into the sweatbox to rescue Elwood and supports him physically as they flee the school. Elwood has been weakened by his time in the sweatbox, slowing down Turner considerably, but he does not abandon his friend, attesting to the strength and importance of their friendship.  

Amid all the misery and suffering at Nickel Academy, friendship becomes a source of peace, solace, and even happiness for both Turner and Elwood. After Elwood’s death, Turner assumes his name, both to keep the authorities off his trail but also to keep some part of Elwood alive. His friendship with Elwood, then, proves to be transformative for Turner, and he later adopts some of Elwood’s ideals and values despite his painful experiences at Nickel Academy. 

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