Themes in "Gifted Hands"

THEMES

The value of education

At the beginning of the book, education does not hold much value in Ben’s eyes. The reson for this is that Ben wasn’t doing very well in school. Curtis on the other hand wasn’t doing much better as he was nearly enrolled in vocational courses. Sonya Carson is probably to be credited with showing the Carson brothers the value of education. She pushed them into taking their education seriously by cutting down their tv time and making them read more. One day in church ben heard a story of missionarys in Africa and decided that he wanted to become a doctor. With his newfound value of education, he believed that is was possible and his mother shared in the belief.

Ben however found a setback when he transferred back to Higgins Elementary School. He was challenged in the almost “all-white school” and felt dumb compared to the other fifth-graders. He vividly remembers many zeros and low grades on math papers. His mother kept encouraging him to do better even when he had improved. When ben started to read more he expanded his horizons and started to overtake the cass one by one. First he became good in science then he challenged himself to beat bobby farmer in speling. Eventually Ben made it to the top of his class in six grade but then questioned himslef the most important question he coud probably have said in a ifetime – “Why stop there?”. Ben, through hard work and determination kept his title as top of the class to the point where the principal was ashamed that a black boy was at the top of the class.

When Ben moved back to Detroit, he was enrolled in a different school and apparently academics weren’t as high a priority there. Because ben wasnted to be accepted his grades dropped considerably. Bens valye of education dropped drastically as he seemd to no longer have an intrest in his schoolwork. Sonya was there however ot keep him on track.


Love and loyalty

Love and loytalty are strong themes throughout the bok of Gifted Hands. They however are expecially strong in the first few chapters when Ben mostly talks about his family. Ben loved his father very much and so did his mother but she had to let him go bacause he had been leading a double life. Ben did not know the cause of their breakup at the time but still loved his father dearly, this is shown when he prayed every night for them to get back together. Love was also shown by Sonya when she desperately tried to avoid her children knowing how dire the situation was of her husband and her psychiatric help needs.Sonya also loved Robert dearly as she never blamed him for anything during the months that followed.

Love and loyalty is ehibited by sonya carson once again in the second chapter. She cared deeply about her sons and their educaation. When Curtis was going to be put in vocational courses Sonya went down to the school and argued with the counselor until she got what was best for her child. She knew that her son was cpable of much more than that and those courses would be a waste of his time and intelligence. Later on she started pushing her sons to do and be their best. This ofcourse paid off.

Love and loyalty was exhibited by sonya when it is discovered that she rarely has anytime to sepnd with her family because of her multiple jobs but the few hours she did have “she showered them”. She also knew hoe much their Detriot house meant to the family and vowed to get it back. Sonya also enoucarged Ben a lot when he was at the bottom of his cass – out of love.

Later on in life, sonya wanted ben to be happy so she tried to buy him some of the clothes that he wanted. Sonya also cared deeply about ben and triedto keep him on track at school.

Sonya needed love too and a woman name Mary Htomas showed this to her and helper her with her psychiatric problems. She pointed her to God and some of Sonya’s reliatves helped along the way as well. Sonya got help at the right time as she was contemplating suicide at the time.