Analyse af Marc Mitchells novelle 'The New Girl'

The racial conflicts between black and white have always been a problem and still is. This story highlights racial conflicts in the U.S. The short story “The New Girl” by Marc Mitchell portrays just that. It tells the story about a boy who is friends with a girl named Allison, and they live in the same neighborhood. But one day an African American girl moves in across the street, and the racial conflict slowly begins. Marc Mitchell invites us to see, how easily kids are affected by their surroundings, for example their parents. You can inherit the racial behavior from your parents. When you grow up thinking that being racist is okay, you do not know better than that. It also highlights how the racial division was at the time and some places still is. Racism and discrimination are the main themes of his story. This develops compassion and it highlights the hardships of being a different race. Consequently, the focus of this analytical essay will be on the setting, characterization, themes and message.

In the story, we hear about a boy and his friend Allison. They both grew up on the same street and they only became friends by default. The boy is the narrator in the text. He is eight years old, and he lives with his parents on Prospect Street. Allison and the boy are often together, as you can read here: “During summer, we spent a lot of time riding our bikes, playing Clue and pretending to be married” (p. 2, l.1). When we read “We were the only kids on the block” (p. 1, l. 7) and “Most of the houses were about seventy years old” (p. 2, l. 15), we get the impression that they live in a place with elderly people. The text also say that the houses are old and simple, and that reflects on the people’s personalities, and how they are thinking in an old way. It takes place in the U.S in the early 1980, because the story was written 20 years after the event and the story was published in 2001. It is also important to look at the time and the place. It is a white neighborhood and because of that people are not as openminded against new people and especially colored. It also takes places in 1980 where people where not as enlightened as we are today.