72 pages • 2 hours read
Ta-Nehisi CoatesThe Beautiful Struggle
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates
The writer acts as the narrator of the book, describing his experiences growing up in Maryland under the strict parentage of his father. His brother Big Bill guides him in this process, providing the macho gun-carrying foil to Coates’s nerdy fantasy-loving self. Coates is forced to deal with the broader cultural climate of Baltimore in the 80s, where crack cocaine, gang violence, and under resourced education systems create a situation where young black boys like Coates are nearly destined to succumb. Writing from his perspective today, Coates describes this upbringing in mythic proportions, revealing his childhood love for epic tales. He is a daydreamer, caught up in worlds outside the one he's living in. He doesn't like to fight, which leaves him with a reputation for being “soft” (48) in the eyes of his peers.
Big Bill (Damani Coates / William Coates Jr.)
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s brother Big Bill is a warrior, well suited for the jungle that is Baltimore in the 80s. Bill soaks in the “Knowledge” unlike Coates, and he has an ego that sometimes gets him into trouble. At one point he buys a gun, and he later begins to deal marijuana while attending Howard University. Bill’s struggle to apply himself mirrors that of Coates, but the two brothers are foils of each other. Big Bill has “game” (29), swagger, and street credit. Ultimately, after a near run in with the law at Howard University, he begins to better apply himself, marking his transition into manhood.
Dad (William Paul Coates)
William Paul Coates is the patriarch of the family. He is an exacting parent who runs his home like a tight ship. Ta-Nehisi Coates’s father is a “Conscious Man” committed to unearthing black culture and working toward the liberation of black people in the United States. As a former Black Panther, William Paul Coates eventually opens his own publishing house that reprints important but long-lost texts by African and African-American writers. His one flaw, according to Coates’s narration, is his infidelity. Unlike most fathers in Baltimore in the 80s, the Coates patriarch was present for his family. However, Coates see the contradiction in his father’s values when William Paul Coates opens his marriage with Coates’s mother, Linda, and embraces polyamory.
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