Response to “Monkey Man”, and “Angela’s Eyes”.
Walter Dean Myers shows the 145th Street neighborhood in both “Monkey Man,” as well as “Angela’s Eyes” from two perspectives: strength, weakness, and value. Through these stories, he describes 145th Street with humanlike traits and values. The stories tell a story about the neighborhood and the main values. “Monkey Man”, a positive portrayal of the neighborhood’s values is, however, more accurate than “Angela’s Eyes”, which gives a negative view. Monkey Man is the main character in “Monkey Man” and is being sought by the local gang to intercede in the cutting of innocent people. Peaches, the person who is trying to save Monkey Man, rallies his neighbors. She fails, but he devises a plan for himself, ultimately relying upon the goodwill and morals of the neighbourhood to defeat the evil plans of the gang. “I thought some people would show wrong, while some other people would show right,” he says. No matter what occurred, it would be obvious to everyone (Myers 85). The events of this story show us the strong familial bonds of 145th Street. We also see the love and support they offer each other. Angela’s Eyes depicts Angela, a young girl who lives with her mom and whose father died recently in a work-related accident. Angela starts having dreams. In one of her dreams, she meets Poli and her father. Angela gives details about her dream to Poli. Poli then dies shortly thereafter. Angela dreams that she is seeing Eddie Robinson. This alarms the entire neighborhood. Angela’s ability to see the future has made her a terror to the neighbors. Angela is a victim of poor treatment and she refuses to be seen in public. Rodriguez stated that Angela is treated poorly and she doesn’t like going out in public anymore. (Myers 47). This portrays the neighborhood’s ignorance and shallowness, allowing them to believe everything they hear and spreading rumors that hurt people. The neighborhood’s actions and “Angela’s Eyes”, show us the mob mentality which led to poor treatment for a young girl. She was not able to have any influence. Walter Dean Myers’ “Monkey Man,” “Angela’s Eyes” taught me how I could describe a locale like a character. These stories help us to understand the values and morals in the neighborhood. It almost seems as if 145th St. is the biography of a character. The character in question being 145th. The street stories are like a person’s story, which shapes the portrayal of the character, at 145th Street. Walter Dean Myers does this in “Monkey Man” as well as “Angela’s Eyes”.
