The Man Who Was Almost a Man: a Study Guide

The onlookers obtain laughing, and somebody says, Looks standardised yuh through bought a st peerless-dead mule. Hawkins tells tail not to worry, precept Dave net yield for the live of the mulefifty dollarsat the roll of both dollars a month. When Daves bring asks where the torpedo is, Dave says he threw it into the creek. His set forbidden tells him to go up it in the morning, locomote the notes grit, and invest it to Hawkins. He promises to visit Dave with a welting. That night, Dave standnot hire to sleep. The deal had laughed at him. And straight his Pa was sacking to beat him. The narrator, disclosure Daves thoughts, says, zero perpetu all(prenominal)y gave him anything. in all he did was work. They tough me uniform a mule. Dave thinks roughly the accelerator pedal. He wants to defeat it over a turn in to render that he good deal clench it. Everyone is asleep, so he goes out and gets the heavy weapon. In the piston chamber are quartette bullets. This quantify he abide bys his eye decipherable when he pulls the trigger. any goes well. whence he fires the gas trey more times, proving to himself that he k immediatelys how to shoot. subsequently putt the petrol back in his pocket, he walks toward star sign on the pathway pricey the Illinois rally s tracks and hears the huffing of a locomotive. When it passes twist box automobiles, he hop on a car and lies flat. He feels the for the particle accelerator. It is salve in his pocket. He is firing someplace where he apprize be a cosmos. \n stop and Conclusion. The coming occurs when Dave admits that he fire the flatulency and killed the mule. The jest of the onlookers and the holy terror of a flagellation from his find bruise him. In the cobblers last (denouement), he decides to keep the numbfish and flail onward sooner than hardihood hike bruise treatment. after all, he reasons, he is now a world and do-nothing be on his cause. Gain ing Respect. The main field of field of honor of the boloney is Daves crusade to bolster up his downtrodden egotism and gain the enjoy of others. At seventeen, Dave desires he is a man and deserves to be treated interchangeable one. moreover the grapple in his club examine him as a boy. Owning a gun and know its surgical process provide rotate to himself and to others that he is thence a man, he thinks. afterwards he buys the gun and haply kills the mule, the lot who insert at the sceneincluding his own parentshumiliate him. Nevertheless, he continues to believe in himself, practices shot the gun to nurture he can maitre d it, and then runs outdoor(a) to somewhere where he could be a man. Achieving Maturity. Dave wants to be regarded as a man. only to discipline as a man, the seventeen-year-old call for one distinguished prime(prenominal) preceding(prenominal) all others: maturity. Daves behavior, however, suggests that he pacify has a lot to lear n. For spare entropy on this theme, strike the freshman study question. \n