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The First Part Last Essay

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"A man can only endure so much before his will is broken and he can not push farther... we, sir, are here to test this one's will, and in turn, reveal the length of his abilities". In The First Part Last by Angela Johnson, a 16 year old boy named Bobby, whose surname the book does not reveal, is given the onus of taking care of a child that his girlfriend, Nia, had given birth to before they were separated due to medical issues with her body. The story begins with introducing Bobby, and we soon find out that because of the situation at hand, he must become a man to cope with the stress and the potential regret that comes with having a child at 16. So Bobby was forced to become a man, in order to truly reveal the length of his abilities, and …show more content…

In the first chapter, Bobby states that he thinks of the world as wrong. He thinks that "if the world were really right, humans would live life backwards and do the first part last. They would be all knowing in the beginning and innocent in the end" (TFPL pg. 4). Bobby was given more reason to think this way when "Just Frank", the homeless guy who always asked Bobby if he "was being a man", got murdered while trying to stop a nutjob from pulling a helpless girl into an alley. Just Frank had been killed in cold blood by a man whose sole intent was to harm. This man had lost everything, and was probably having the worst time of his entire life when he was murdered while trying to save someone's life. Then, the thought arose, "why do bad things happen to good people", which gave Bobby a respect for this man who he had seen as a joke for a very long time. He died when he was the most alone, and Bobby wishes that humans would die when they are young and innocent and in the arms of their loving parents and surrounded by people who care about them. Not to be murdered in cold blood in an alley when help is needed the most. This changed Bobby's outlook on the world and gave him a new sense of maturity and

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