Jasper Jones Essay

Values have been endorsed and challenged throughout the novel Jasper Jones written by Craig Silvey. The novel Jasper Jones was about a young, shy boy named Carlie who was confronted by an older, confident boy named Jasper Jones who needed his help. As Charlie says yes they set off into the night to where Jasper shows Charlie a young girl, Eliza Wishart, who has been beaten and hung. Throughout the novel they attempt to find out who has done this horrible act to Eliza. The values of equality and coming of age have been both endorsed and challenged. Values of equality, intelligence and acceptance of individuality have been both endorsed and challenged. The value of equality were endorsed through Jasper and Jeffery Lu who have experienced discrimination due to their differences. The values of intelligence and acceptance of individuality were both present through Charlie’s allusion and his differences. The value of equality being present within the character of Jeffery Lu was evident due to his characterisation. As he was a Japanese boy who lived in Australia during the time when there was large conflict between the Japanese and Australians. In the novel Jasper Jones you see Jeffery and the Lu family to be the recipient between of many racist acts towards them. â€Å"Jeffery’s parents are Vietnamese, so he’s ruthlessly bullied and belted about by the boys at school.† Through the characterisation of Jeffery it represents the way how Jeffery is being treated because of his differences, however he portrayed Jeffery to be a very lovable character in the novel. By doing this the readers like the character of Jeffery and reject the actions and discrimination that has been done upon him so they accept the value of equality. As Jeffery is represented to be unflappable which is portraying that all of the outcasts in the world to be strong and Silvey is depicting small Australian towns to be non-accepting of others with differences in race/ The readers are then challenging the values of the town and endorsing the values of equality. Jasper Jones has been shown by author Silvey to present the value of freedom. In the town of Corrigan Jasper is seen by the public to be a menace. All of the townspeople think that he is no good to society. With Jasper Jones you see the town’s people duality as they go around blaming everything that goes wrong in the town on him but cheer and shout his name out on the football field.