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Wednesday, July 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Monster, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Dehumanization and Racism
Lies and Self-Interest
Endemic Violence
Injustice
Summary
Analysis
One of the inmates in the detention center will get his verdict this morning for robbing a check-cashing center and shooting the guard. He’d just been desperate for money; he’d meant to pay it back someday. The man cries with anxiety, and Steve wants to cry with him. O’Brien told him that if the judge sentences him to 25 years, he’ll have to serve at least 21 and three months, which seems unimaginable. Steve thinks about his mom fretting over him, and about Mr. Nesbitt and the crime scene photos O’Brien showed him. O’Brien tried to hide it, but Steve knew she was watching him to see how he’d react, to see who Steve Harmon truly is; “I wanted to open my shirt and tell her to look into my heart to see who I really was.”
Although the man Steve wants to cry with is guilty of taking a life, which is certainly a terrible criminal act, his claim that it was only done out of desperation nods to the fact that poverty and desperation often motivate such crimes; they are not done purely out of malicious intent or an evil desire to hurt or rob someone else. O’Brien’s desire to see how Steve will react to the photos makes her the only person in the story thus far that recognizes Steve as a human being and desires to understand him as a person.
Themes
In his heart, Steve knows he’s a good person. Before he’d left the courthouse yesterday he’d asked O’Brien about her own life, and she told him about her university education and her law career, though she didn’t sound very interested by it. It sounded like a good life to Steve, though. In the holding pen, where Steve waits to be brought into the courtroom, the guards talk about their own lives: one about how much his kids’ dental work costs him, the others about how the Yankees are playing.
Steve returns O’Brien’s legitimate interest in his life with a legitimate interest in hers, as well, demonstrating the manner in which a mutual recognition of each other’s humanity can build trust and connection. The guards’ conversations about their own lives suggests that, on some level, every person simply wants to be known and understood, to share themselves with others.
Themes
While Steve is waiting, someone brings King in and handcuffs him to the bench next to Steve. King asks Steve if Steve is trying to cut a deal, and he sneers, trying to scare Steve. Steve thinks he looks like a fool. He’d once looked up to King, wishing he were tough and untouchable like him, but now after being terrified out of his wits every night in jail, King isn’t scary anymore. He can’t do anything to Steve here. When an officer brings them into the courtroom, Steve sees that a middle school class is sitting in the observation area, there to see a trial on a school trip. They are afraid to make eye contact with Steve, and Steve can imagine that he is in their place, “looking at the back of the prisoner.”
Although King once seemed like a tough and imposing figure, even admirable in a way for his strength, the fact that he now appears foolish to Steve suggests that jail has fundamentally changed Steve’s perspective—people like King who once appeared powerful within the limited realm of Harlem now appear to be powerless before the government and the justice system, and the crime and violence people like King practice to earn their reputation have no actual function at all.
Themes
Back to the screenplay: A pretty juror sits, smiling. Steve smiles at her and she looks away and stops smiling. He puts his head down on the table, and when O’Brien tells him to sit up, there are tears in his eyes.
The juror’s rejection of Steve signals that she sees him not as just a 16-year-old kid, but a convict, a monster, demonstrating the stigma and dehumanization associated with being a criminal defendant.
Themes
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Petrocelli continues questioning Osvaldo, who claims he participated in the robbery (his job was to stop anyone who came out of the store from chasing King and Bobo) simply because he was scared of Bobo. The government is cutting him a deal in exchange for his testimony. Briggs takes his turn, insinuating that Osvaldo is lying under oath, testifying so the district attorney will keep him out of jail. O’Brien starts questioning Osvaldo, pointing out that he was arrested again for beating up his girlfriend. When O’Brien asks if Osvaldo is in a gang, he lies and says he isn’t until O’Brien forces him to acknowledge that he’s in the Diablos, and that to join up he had to fight another Diablo and then slash a stranger’s face with a knife. O’Brien points out that it seems unlikely that Osvaldo was afraid of Bobo.
Once again, despite the image of himself that Osvaldo tries to project, which serves the prosecution’s case by establishing him as a legitimate and sympathetic witness, Briggs and O’Brien both easily reveal him as a selfish individual with a history of committing violence against strangers, making him far more of a criminal figure than Steve. This again demonstrates the manner in which the courtroom does less to seek out the actual truth than it does to test whose side can lie the most convincingly, which naturally results in an unjust system.
Themes
In a visiting room, Steve’s father Mr. Harmon visits him. Mr. Harmon says O’Brien isn’t sounding very positive about the case so far, but it will be good when Steve has the chance to tell his own side of things. Mr. Harmon tells Steve this was never what he thought Steve’s path would be. When Steve was a baby, Mr. Harmon dreamed he’d go to university like his father did and play football, not wind up in jail. As Mr. Harmon leaves, he reaches to touch Steve’s hand but a guard blocks the contact. As the scene fades, Steve hears his father sobbing.
Mr. Harmon’s pain at his son’s trial and possible incarceration suggests that Steve’s involvement in the case does not only hurt Steve, but his family as well, since it hurts them to see him suffer and disappoints the expectations and hopes that his father had for Steve’s life. The guard blocking human contact between father and son represents another form of dehumanization, denying Steve the ability to be comforted by his dad.
Themes
In his notes, Steve writes that he’s never seen his father cry before. Steve doesn’t even know what he’s guilty of—all he did was walk into the drugstore and back out of it. He didn’t steal anything; he didn’t touch Nesbitt. But his whole family feels the pain of it, and Steve feels like his relationship with his dad has broken. He thinks his dad sees him as a monster now too, just like the jury.
Steve’s private admission that he walked into the drugstore and out of it confirms that he was at the drugstore on the day of the murder, which is important to note, since he will later deny it during his defense. Mr. Harmon’s viewing of his son as a monster suggests that not only does Steve internalize the prosecution’s view of him, but his father does as well.
Themes
Cut to Steve’s neighborhood. Two women stand together, talking about a recent murder in the drugstore. Steve is within earshot, playing basketball, but as they talk he takes off running. Then Steve is at home, watching a newscaster on the TV report the murder. The newscaster asks a local resident if he is “shocked” by it, and the man says it’s a bad thing, but it’s nothing new; a little girl was killed sitting on her porch a couple months ago. Steve watches in shock, his mouth open, but Jerry thinks nothing of it and changes the channel.
Both Jerry and the resident interviewed on TV are apparently indifferent to a local murder, which suggests that such violence is tragically common in Steve’s neighborhood. Meanwhile, Steve’s shocked and fearful reaction to the news, contrasting with Jerry’s indifference, suggests that he does have some sort of personal connection with the murder.
Themes
Two weeks later, Steve’s mother Mrs. Harmon tells him that they caught the two murderers from the drugstore. Steve watches on the news as a newscaster announces Bobo and King’s arrest, showing footage of them being handcuffed. Mayor Rudy Giuliani appears in a press conference, talking about fighting crime in all parts of the city, not just the white parts. That evening, Detectives Williams and Karyl arrive and announce that they’re taking Steve to the precinct for questioning. Mrs. Harmon panics as they handcuff her son, but Steve tries to reassure her it’s all “routine.” After they leave, Mrs. Harmon runs out into the street, but realizes that she doesn’t even know where the police took Steve.
The detectives even dehumanize Mrs. Harmon when they take Steve away, not paying heed to her concern as a mother or respecting her need to know what is happening to her son, who is still just a child. The image of Mrs. Harmon frantically running out in the street to follow after her son but not knowing where he’s been taken not only demonstrates her love for Steve, but also reflects the way that Steve is removed from her care and protection when he’s thrown in jail.
Themes
