First Snow by Davy Rothbart

Analytical essay of the novel ”First snow” by Davy Rothbart

The novel “First Snow” was written by Davy Rothbart. It tells a story about five inmates in a prison that bullies and verbally abuses a fellow black inmate called Maurice. Colin is the oldest of the five guys, and he is 23, so we would assume, that the 5 guys are aged between 18-23. You can assume, that the writer Davy Rothbart wrote this text, to tell a story about racism, and how little racist people actually care. The story may also explain something about peer pressure, and how if 4 of your other friends are bullying, you have to follow up, so you don’t seem weak. I don’t know if it’s controversial to write about racism, but it indeed once where, unfortunately it’s not said what year the text is written in, I could imagine that the story is written sometime near the civil war in USA.

The storyline takes place in the prison that they are held up in, Galloway Lake, but also outside the prison, when they are out to work, I assume the prison lies in USA. The five guys that together bully Maurice is called Colin, Nick, Justin, John Jay and the last one is the teller of the story, known as “I”, these five guys are each others closest friends in the prison, and they collaborate and entertain by bullying Maurice. They don’t beat him up or anything like that as you would imagine from a stereotypical prison, the reason for that is, that it's a small prison and there is a patrolling warrant called Greider. Greider was a hard balding man in his fifties that had worked at prisons in 30 of those. The only reason why the boys have chosen to bully Maurice was as explained in the text because “Maurice, though was exceptionally weak. He was just a few inches over five feet, so slight as to resemble a child”…”He trembled at our approach. The only reason he did not retaliate was because he was so afraid”. So the only reason the guys bullied him exactly was because he was small, afraid and weak. One day all of these characters were eating lunch in the van after work, when all of a sudden little Maurice stands up and starts to cry out about how no one gives a damn about him, and how his brother just died. The storyteller of this reacts badly towards Maurice’s speech and yells as loud as he can at him, and tells him to “SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP!” (p.3 l. 109). Because of the yelling the warrant Greider gets out of the front seat of the van, opens the door into the guys and tells them all to come out. When the guys get out a car appears out of nowhere, hits the Greider and then takes without again without stopping. The guys then get furious and blame Maurice, because he stood up and spoke all of a sudden. All of the five guys then hold Maurice down and beat him up, in the text it even says “we beat Maurice savagely, with pride, with glory”, like they had been waiting to fulfill this act for a long time. After the beating Colin says that they have to drive Maurice and Greider to the hospital, which they so due