PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS

The plot structure is relatively straightforward, as it follows the life of Cedric Jennings from his Junior year at Ballou High School all the way to his sophomore year at Brown University. In that sense, the story is very focused and linear - in many ways reflecting a standard biography, albeit one devoted to only several years in the subject's life.

However, there are ellipses in Cedric's life story as presented in the book: not all the periods in Cedric's life are covered with the same amount of detail, as Suskind opts for the most dramatically powerful events for his focus. This is a necessity on every level imaginable. On the most practical level, a book that dealt with every event in every day of Cedric's life would be too long and too involved; those years have to be edited down into something manageable for both writer and reader. As a journalist, Suskind cannot track all the events in Cedric's life and convey them without measuring what is important and what isn't, to stick to the relevant facts and support the main reason for his reportage. As a writer who wishes to create a dramatic as well as informative work, Suskind must also keep the story moving at an engaging pace while also maintaining thematic cohesion. It is a tribute to his abilities that Suskind balances his responsibilities as a journalist with that as a dramatist and that neither suffers as a result.

However, this does not mean the ellipses in the timeline don't raise some dilemmas for the reader. For instance, Spring Break in Cedric's freshman year at Brown is only discussed in hindsight, after the fact, though it marks another return to D.C. for Cedric. Considering how momentous past returns home had been, one can't help wondering if conflicts occurred during that week. Perhaps the most problematic ellipse in the story is the sudden reversal of Cedric's opinion of the Math teacher Mr. Fleming at Slater Junior High School. He is introduced in a negative light to the extent that Cedric writes an impassioned poem about his experiences in Fleming's classroom for his midterm paper. However, by the end of the semester we are simply told that Cedric now understands Fleming's difficulties and likes him. How this came about is unclear and unexplored in the book's pages.

As a work of journalism, the book isn't solely about Cedric and his individual story, but also broader issues of American society and the nature of opportunity when race and class still matter so critically. The most notable strategy in this regard are the character tangents throughout the book. Suskind often deviates from Cedric's perspective to look at the situation from another character's point of view. When he does this, the scope of the novel and its concerns is often broadened beyond Cedric's personal and scholarly concerns. When the narrative follows fellow Ballou students such as Phillip Atkins and LaTisha Williams, their own life decisions are explained and to some degree justified, even though it doesn't provide the path to success that Cedric desires. Authority figures such as Bill Ramsey at M.I.T. and Professor Tom James at Brown are able to express the complex socioeconomic conditions that plague students such as Cedric, even when the system is supposed to encourage lower class minorities. In this way, the book's goal about capturing American society and not just one individual is achieved in a powerful, comprehensive manner.