Charlie's Message

4 Pages 1007 Words

Charlie’s Message

Many people live their lives with having some regret of not taking some action or standing up in an incident that happened in the past. If such action was taken, it probably could reverse one’s perception of his/her accomplishments of their life depending on the seriousness of the incident. To some, a psychological disorder might evolve if a negative situation keeps recurring. In one of my incidents were I was bullied for a couple of months about ten years ago, it did not change me any bit. Till this day it does not have any effect on my well being in my life. It just makes me think that I should have done something, because if I did take some action, I could have shortened the length of me being bullied. For some it takes years of recurring situations to take action and when they do they snap. In the book A Gathering of Old Men, a perfect example of somebody snapping is a fifty-year-old man named Charlie.
Charlie six seven, weighed around two hundred and seventy, grandson of former salves, also had problems that lasted about 45 years. He lived in the south, at a time were society-oppressed blacks by white southerners and blacks were considered to be second-class. Living in this society Charlie was tired of what he called “running.” Charlie ended up shooting his supervisor at work. While he was being question by the sheriff (Mapes), why he shot a Cajun named Beau. Charlie replied “That’s all I ever done with my life, was run from people. From black, from white: from nigger, from Cajun, both. All my life. Made me do what they wanted me to do, and bused me if I did it right, and bused me if I did it wrong-all my life. And I took it. I’m fifty now. Fifty years of busing. All my natural-born black life I took the busing and never hit back,”(A Gathering of Old Men 189) meaning that 50 years of being maltreated provoked him to shoot Beau.
The confrontation started between Charlie and Beau. Charlie was w...