Youth Gangs in Literature

Claudia Durst Johnson

• Publisher: Greenwood
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780313327490
• eBook ISBN: 9780313061677
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Gang culture is one of the most volatile issues to have impacted young people throughout history and around the world. By focusing on the fictional representation of youth gangs, this work presents a unique perspective on an all-too-real phenomenon and its many manifestations. Organized chronologically and topically, the volume begins with a powerful essay tracing the origins and developments of youth gangs, from the early days of the Wild West to immigration gangs in 19th- and 20th-century America and the Twenty chapters, each introduced with a primary document, fully explore the different types of gangs, identifying their time, place, struggles, and demographic character. Included are the early gangs of New York City, prison gangs, Asian gangs, school gangs, African American gangs, and girl gangs. Each chapter analyzes one or more works of fiction in terms of its thematic message and the light it sheds on the nature of the depicted gang situation. The examined fiction will be of special interest to students and educators, and includes works often found on assigned reading lists, such as The Chocolate War, The Outsiders, and Lord of the Flies. Popular works, such as Gangs of New York, provide an historical perspective on early immigrant gangs, while presenting timeless themes of identity struggles that resonate for young people everywhere. In addition to the literary works and primary documents, suggestions for additional titles and sources for further information on the topics are offered.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Series Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Outlaw Gangs in an Outlaw Society: Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Dread Redeemer Lazarus Morell” (1972) and Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
• 2. The Irish Immigrant: Herbert Asbury’s The Gangs of New York (1927)
• 3. The Draft Riots: Kevin Baker’s Paradise Alley (2002)
• 4. New York Gangs around the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Jorge Luis Borges’s “Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities” (1972)
• 5. A Heritage of Guns: Larry McMurtry's Anything for Billy (1998)
• 6. The 1920s in Chicago: James T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan (1932)
• 7. Jewish Gangs in Brownsville, 1944–1945: Irving Schulman’s The Amboy Dukes (1946)
• 8. 1940s in Harlem: Richard Wright’s Rite of Passage (1978)
• 9. Nazis and Gangs: William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954)
• 10. A Girl Gang in the 1950s: Joyce Carol Oates’s Foxfire (1993)
• 11. Gangs in the 1960s: S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders (1967)
• 12. Vietnam and Civil Rights: Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline (1980)
• 13. Prep Schools and Watergate: Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War (1974)
• 14. Family Disintegration in the 1980s: Walter Dean Myers’s Scorpions (1988)
• 15. 1960s Los Angeles: Frank Bonham's Durango Street (19'65)
• 16. South Central Los Angeles: Kody Scott’s Monster (1993)
• 17. Barrio Gangs of the 1960s and 1970s: Luis Rodriguez’s Always Running, La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (1993)
• 18. Filipino Americans: Brian Ascalon Roley’s American Son (2001)
• 19. Vietnamese Gangs and Skinheads: Sherry Garland’s Shadow of the Dragon (1993)
• 20. Chinese Gangs: Dan Mahoney’s The Two Chinatowns (2001)
• Index