Theme: Courage
A problem can only be fixed if someone is willing to take courage an do something about it. Rosa shows this theme by being the courageous person to not just sit idly by and allow others to treat her like she is nothing. She worked hard to get an education, and she applied over and over again to apply to vote because she was persistent. Other blacks accepted that "white folks were white folks and that you just didn't talk to white folks or act that way [defiantly] around white people. You didn't retaliate if they did something to you." This was the reason why white people where able to just walk all over black people for so long. This mindset upset Rosa. She felt that it was "very much in her [my] rights to defend herself [myself] if she [I] could." It is this attitude that conveys the theme of courage in the story. She knew that "the more we gave in and complied, the worse they treated us," so she refused to act submissively, and she decided to be the courageous one to take a stand against the status quo. To understand why Rosa would act so defiantly, one must identify this theme, because the whole idea of the book was to show that the only way to end abuse, solve a problem, and change the world for the better is to take courage and be a catalyst for change.
A problem can only be fixed if someone is willing to take courage an do something about it. Rosa shows this theme by being the courageous person to not just sit idly by and allow others to treat her like she is nothing. She worked hard to get an education, and she applied over and over again to apply to vote because she was persistent. Other blacks accepted that "white folks were white folks and that you just didn't talk to white folks or act that way [defiantly] around white people. You didn't retaliate if they did something to you." This was the reason why white people where able to just walk all over black people for so long. This mindset upset Rosa. She felt that it was "very much in her [my] rights to defend herself [myself] if she [I] could." It is this attitude that conveys the theme of courage in the story. She knew that "the more we gave in and complied, the worse they treated us," so she refused to act submissively, and she decided to be the courageous one to take a stand against the status quo. To understand why Rosa would act so defiantly, one must identify this theme, because the whole idea of the book was to show that the only way to end abuse, solve a problem, and change the world for the better is to take courage and be a catalyst for change.