Brief Summary: The Bosket Man

The Bosket men were like seeds that never took root anywhere because the anger, bitterness, and society saying they were bad kept them running. Once slavery was abolished, slaves had no home to call their own, no money to take care of themselves, no formal training but working the white man’s land. Once again violence was perpetrated; therefore, the whites lost their livelihood they had been accustomed too for hundreds of years. White’s anger was directed towards blacks but the reason slavery was abolished was the aid of other whites. “but much white violence against blacks was prompted by dispute between white planters and black tenants over land and labor” (p. 39). Pud Bosket did not found situation like this bearable. He demanded respect just like white men wanted for themselves. Pud’s father was totally different; he kept his head down and obeyed the rules. He lived outside the violence but Pud chose to embrace the violence. He believed that violence would gain him respect like white men. “His quest for self-respect would lead him into violence” (p. 45). The notion blacks did not deserve respect; furthermore, degraded them and Pud did not want to abide by rules that kept blacks under their control. He wanted a reputation that he was a man by all rights and the color of his skin did not make that otherwise but his reputation labeled him as trouble maker and dangerous to be around. Blacks started looking up to Pud as a man that followed his own rules and he did not take any lip off whites. …show more content…
Pud’s run in with the law becoming more frequently and the crimes he committed become more violent. He began to drink and become violent towards his wife. Pud last his life in a car accident. The legacy he left behind was that of a reckless and self- destructive as the cavaliers of the antebellum South. Pud’s life started the chain reaction that the rest of the Bosket men would try to live up to. The Bosket’s relocated to Augusta, Georgia during the Depression: at this time we are introduced to James Bosket; Pud’s youngest son with France Bosket. A young man growing up idolizing a man in which he had never met, but the stories people told were fascinating to a young man without a father. He wanted to walk in his father shoes. The social circumstance in Augusta was not much better than the circumstance the family left in South Carolina. The social status between the whites and blacks rested on the bottom and top of a hill. The area in which blacks lived was at the basin of a river which was over crowed; the jobs did not pay well. Whites’ lived on top of the hill in mansions overlooking beautiful gardens. The political aspect favored whites because the leading party was called the Cracker Party; the entire party was white. Blacks did not receive an education further than seventh grade. The possibility of holding an offices was further from their grasp. James began with a deficit being the son of Pud Bosket, his lack of education, and his economical. He would have to work low paying jobs. He did not have a father either but in the area he lived it was the norm to only have a single parent him. James mother had to work long hours to provide for her family. She could not make rent so the family moved a lot because of this James could not root his self. James idolizing a man her never knew; the lack of education, the lack of stable home, and the fact his mother condoned James action. The seed of violence grow. She did not stop to think that James father’s action left her a widow with children which she could barely feed and shelter. Butterfield stated, the Bosket family was an American story but with a twist. You see generation of men in a families following each other in career paths. The Bosket family men chose violence than becoming lawyers, doctors or servicemen. Pud presents would have the same outcome; James still would