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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Police Brutality, Corruption, and Systemic Racism
Healing, Progress, and Collective Consciousness
Justice, Perspective, and Ambiguity
Individuals vs. Institutions
Action vs. Symbolic Gesture
Summary
Analysis
Smith interviews Reginald Denny. They’re in the office of Johnnie Cochran, Denny’s lawyer. Denny wears a baseball cap and T-shirt. His friend is there with a little girl. One of Cochran’s assistants, a Black woman attorney, attends the interview as well. Denny is upbeat as he describes what led to his beating. Every day, he has to make a trip to Inglewood. Normally it’s not a problem, other than people being annoyed by him “taking up as much space as [he] can in the truck.” Turning onto Florence Street is tricky, and he needs two lanes to make the sharp turn.
Smith has presented a Denny sympathizer, a Denny critic, and now she finally offers Denny’s perspective on his attack. Denny’s notably upbeat demeanor is perhaps surprising, given the brutal attack he suffered. Denny’s recollection of his attack contradicts Cooper’s assumptions about Denny’s motives. While Cooper thinks Denny turned onto Florence Street to intimidate rioters, Denny claims the turn was part of his daily route as a truck driver.
Themes
Denny describes turning onto the street and seeing the chaos of the riots as like something out of a movie. Before he could register anything, he was beaten with a bottle of oxygen his attackers had taken from the medical supply truck in front of him. Denny laughs at the irony of this detail. He remembers how he didn’t even realize that the verdict had been announced, since he wasn’t paying attention to the trial. At the time, he didn’t think it had much relevance to his life. For this reason, he had no idea what was happening on Florence Street.
Denny’s willingness to laugh at the irony of bludgeoned with a medical device intended to help, not harm, a person further displays his seeming success at making peace with his attack. Like other white or relatively privileged characters, Denny shows how his race and class status leave him fairly ignorant about the sufferings of marginalized communities. Here, he reveals that he hadn’t even been paying attention to King’s trial, which, until the fateful day of his attack, had no relevance to his life.
Themes
The last thing Denny remembers is his right window being smashed in. He was in a coma for days, and the doctors at the hospital wouldn’t tell him about the riot until weeks after, believing that would cause him undue stress. He first understood that he was a part of something significant when important people, like Reverend Jesse Jackson and actor Arsenio Hall, started coming by to see him. If he hadn’t watched news coverage of the attack, or talked to his rescuers, Titus, Bobby, Terry, and Lee, he wouldn’t remember anything.
Like King’s attack, Denny’s was also highly publicized and sensationalized. Visits by high-profile politician, activist, and minister Rev. Jesse Jackson and actor Arsenio Hall could be interpreted as calculated displays intended to broadcast Black solidarity with the white victim of a racially targeted attack to do damage control in the aftermath of the riots. This lends some credence to Allen Cooper’s earlier gripe about all the Denny publicity distracting from the real problem of widespread police brutality, as well.
Themes
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Denny remembers Terry visiting him in the hospital. It was an emotional visit. Denny describes how impossible it is to express gratitude for someone who saves your life. He describes meeting his rescuers as like meeting friends and talks about the “weird common thread in [their] lives.” He recalls how his rescuers saw the attack on TV and came to his aid, helping him steer the semi-truck out of the chaotic scene. There was blood everywhere. Denny remembers seeing photos of himself looking bloodied before surgery. He describes how Lee Euell, another of his rescuers, told him about how she cradled him as they made their way to the hospital.
Denny’s impulse to connect and relate to others as he heals is best encapsulated in his description of the special bond he has formed with his rescuers, which he characterizes as the “weird common thread in [their] lives.” In the face of great crisis, Denny has found solace in connecting with others. And note too that he sees his Black rescuers as individual people, rather than lumping them in with the Black people who beat him.
Themes
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Denny describes his dream of making a room dedicated to memorializing the riot when he has a house one day. It will be “a happy room,” filled with “love and compassion / and the funny notes” he received in the aftermath of his attack. There will be no “color problem” in the room. Denny admonishes the white man who thinks he’s “a bad-ass / and / thinks he’s better than any other race in town.” He wishes he could put that man in a situation where he needs help so he could see how he’d take whatever help was offered to him, regardless of the color of the person’s skin.
Denny’s vision of “a happy room” expands on his newfound appreciation for connecting to others on a personal level. In fact, in this room, there is no place for any social constructs that sever this collective experience, including race. Additionally, Denny’s attitude of compassion and forgiveness is particularly striking when juxtaposed with Judith Tur’s hateful tirade.
Themes
