Knowing too much.

Some examples of characters suffering from the burden of knowing in this novel are May and Lily. May’s character is one of the best examples of knowledge being a burden, because of May’s past and how she acts mentally and physically when she hears something that would upset her. Oh my goodness how could I forget one other character that is truly burdened by the knowledge of knowing is April, May’s twin sister. Even though April is just spoken of just for a page in this book they way she acted played a huge role in how knowing things affected her. The story of April was that she was a fun young loving girl who enjoyed life until one day her and may went to get ice cream and the white store owner treated them different because they were black and she didn’t understand why she was being treated different and why white people were so unfair to blacks? At such a young age it was a lot for her to take on, and April became deeply depressed by this, from her now knowing things gave her the burden of depression. This not only affected her but it also affected may because they were so close to each other, may felt a lot of empathy from April. April was so unhappy from the knowledge of being unfair in this world that she killed herself and may was never the same after that. May became so sensitive to anything thing that happened, she would burst into tears from someone killing a roach, her feelings got soo sensitive because of April’s death. And may suffered from the burden of knowing because of how she changed from her sisters death, knowing anything that might have any little bit to do with sadness would put her in hysterics. Lily also discovered some burdens from the knowledge she found out. Lily found out how nasty people who are racist treated blacks, when she saw Rosealeen getting beat by white men and the police officer not doing anything about this upset her and made her hate the reason why people acted like that. She also found out about some of her prejudices that she had towards blacks herself. Was she found this out it made her question herself, was she really like those men who beat Rosealeen? Of course she wasn’t, but it still made her question herself and she didn’t like that. Lily also went through the burden of know about her mothers death, I think that she wishes she didn’t know or remember what happened that day in the room with the gun but she does and this messes with her bad, so her knowing about that day is a burden because what it did to her mentally. All of these examples play a big part in this story and the message Kidd is trying to get across, even though things you find out in life aren’t always good it’s a part of life, and how you deal with what is pt in front of you is the real lesson being taught.