Analyse af 'The Baddest Dog in Harlem'

The Baddest Dog in Harlem is a novel written by the American writer Walter Dean Myers.

Walter Dean Myers was an American writer best known for young adult literature.

The baddest dog in Harlem is part of the collection ‘145th Street: Short Stories’ published in 2001.

The telling of the story is in Harlem. Since the 1920s, Harlem has been best known for it’s major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Harlem is a large neighborhood within the northern section of the New York. The story takes place on 145th street, outside a place called “Big Joe’s place”. We are overhearing some men discussing who the best boxer is. They've had the same discussion before, but Willie Murphy wants to have the last word and he's right because he's the oldest. They all seem to have time enough, but suddenly a police officer comes to ask them for how long they’ve been sitting there.

Harlem is an environment where a lot of crime is going on. Crime and drugs have been a kind of everyday in this environment. The author of the text is very good to make Harlem look a bit ‘dirty’; he makes Harlem look like a place with high unemployment and a kind of slum hood.