Marcus's Mistake

1223 Words3 Pages

The Novel Black and White, by Paul Volponi, is a book about two high school basketball stars trying to make it to the pros. However, one mistake will forever change the lives of Marcus, the protagonist, and his best friend Eddie. A mistake that not only is life-altering, but also has put their friendship at risk. Marcus and I are similar in many ways, but we also are very different from one another. On one hand we share a lot of the same viewpoints, hobbies, and interests. Nevertheless I don't agree with Marcus´ response to the central conflict of the novel. Therefore, I believe given the chance, Marcus and I could have been friends, just not outside of school. Given this, Marcus and I wouldn't of been able to be very close friends. I would …show more content…

He is very popular in his high school given his basketball success and he knows it. People view him as a good kid who has his whole life ahead of him. They would never suspect that he would do or be apart of anything of criminal nature. Within the novel Marcus supports this by saying “Eddie and I were two of the best basketball players Long Island City High School ever had.”(3) He also supports this by saying “Scouts from lots of different colleges came to see us play and we were the main attraction on our squad.”(5) Marcus’s mom shows her disbelief of his actions by saying “I don’t want to hear anymore of this I business, because I know it was we.” This supports the notion that no one would suspect Marcus to be apart of a criminal act. Not even his own …show more content…

He is faced with the dilema of not knowing whether to tell the authorities about Eddie or give up his best friend so he won’t be the only one to take the fall. Marcus explains how he can’t believe he’s the only one taking the fall by saying “ I couldn’t stop thinking about how Eddie was getting a free ride.”(62) Marcus’ lawyer asks him to identify the shooter in order to get less time and Marcus replys by saying a flat out “No.”(63) He knows that Eddie is the shooter but he won’t give up his name to anybody, even after Eddie had the audacity to get angry with him for taking a plea deal. Marcus’ decision to not give up Eddie’s name will result in him spending significantly more time in prison and this coupled with Eddie’s ungratefulness is why I disagree with Marcus’

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