Where In The Sun Walter Chapter Summaries

The story begins with the main character, Walter Myers, describing his background and his family's past. He talks about how his great-great uncle Lucas D. Dennis was put into slavery before the Civil War. After the Civil War he moved to Harpers Creek and built a house there. Eventually his family merged with another family called the Greens. Later a woman in the Greens family gave birth to Walter. Her name was Mary Dolly Green, Walter however does not remember much about her because she died after giving birth to Imogene leaving the father with seven children, and later is taught to call his step mom as momma. This section of the book is very important because it describes Walter’s family line and also a little bit about walter and how he doesn't know much about his real mother. Later in the book, Walter begins to describe his home, Harlem New York. He describes how the music and all the people made his heart rush and that it was always an exciting town for him, making it his favorite city. Then he goes into detail about how all he wanted when he was little was to be with Mama. This is significant because later in the story, Walter decides that he wants to read like Mama which is what turns him into a reader (and much, much later a writer) and Walter cares about his mother throughout the book and he never wants to disappoint her, creating a loving relationship with her. After Walter describes how much he loved his mom, he goes into what he liked when he was little. Many of the things he did were bad even though Walter didn't know it, like buying ‘free’ chocolates from the store even though they were actually being charged into mama’s account and eating too many colored icy pops. This is important because eventually as he progress into the book, his habit of doing bad things grows and grows. He even talks about a time he broke his sister’s watch because his mom wouldn’t give him a nickel. His anger and quick temper will follow him through the rest of the book and eventually gets worse as he gets older. Eventually he hits school age and is in first grade. He reads at a second grade level but has difficulty speaking which becomes a problem for him throughout the book. He loved first grade and adored the teacher saying that she was a ‘hugger’. However, when he transitioned into second grade he and others began to notice his speaking problem. He gets bullied by a kid who begins to mock him ‘talking’ and eventually Walter punches him in the face to make him stop. This is important because this is the first sign of what Walters answer to problems are. Through the book he answers most of his problems in acts of violence. Eventually after he gets his punishment for hitting another kid. Walter grows bigger and eventually bigger than most of his class. Momma (who had to …show more content…
Walter then begins to describe how a number of people came into Walter's life that year including some of his family from west virginia. Another person he describes to have entered his life was his uncle Lee who had gotten out of jail. Walter describes as a man who looked a lot like his adoptive father and always talked out of the side of his mouth. When Walter asked why he did this, he said it was so the police couldn't see you talking in jail. Walter says that he begins to talk out of the side of his mouth as well, which foreshadows that he might end up in jail at some point in the book. He then describes about how he couldn't do much that summer because his mom restricted him from most activities. He talks about how one time however, he and a friend Johnny decided to hang a kid who had hurt his eyes by staring at the sun. So they took him to the basement of the church to do just that. However, the church Reverend Abbott caught them hanging him and told there moms (who were also not happy at all) and made them white wash a