77 pages • 2 hours read
Mark OshiroAnger Is a Gift
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A 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.
Character Analysis
Moss
Moss, the novel’s protagonist, is a sixteen-year-old gay Black teenager living in West Oakland. Six years prior to the events of the book, he witnessed his father’s murder by the police and remains highly traumatized by the memory. He is anxious frequently, has regular panic attacks, and has to employ various methods (such as running through a “Rolodex” of happy memories of his father) in order to escape the memory of the sound of the gun and the sight of blood. Even then, he is still regularly haunted by nightmares of the police attacking him or invading his room. He feels a great deal of shame about all of this, afraid that Javier will not like him once he learns how bad his trauma is and, on several occasions, wishing he was not “broken” (183).
Moss also feels a great deal of anger. However, at the beginning of this book, he treats this rage in a similar manner to the way he treats his anxiety and panic: as something inconvenient and troublesome, an intrusive and destructive force from which he wishes to be free. He thinks of it as an “unwanted tourist” and attempts to suppress it “because he [is] tired of it consuming him so often” (100). As the novel progresses and his character develops, Moss’s relationship to his anger changes, initially thanks to his mother Wanda’s interventions. When Moss reports that he tried to intervene when Shawna was assaulted, he frames this as a failing, as him losing control and not looking after his mental health. However, Wanda questions this perception, reframing it as something positive, a noble and righteous rage against injustice. Later, she will even inform him that “Anger is a gift” (169), something he can utilize to bring about change.
Moss learns from this and begins to change his relationship with his own rage. As the novel progresses, he uses it to motivate him to stage the walk-out at the school and to criticize police and enablers in the aftermath of Javier’s murder (such as Mr. Jacobs for failing to intervene before it went so far, Rebecca for naïvely tipping off the school about the demonstration, and Rachel Madsen, the police communications manager, for inappropriately trying to use a grief-filled public meeting as place to give a statement from the police). Even so, his anger still threatens to consume him right up until he manages to channel it into the protest outside the police building. In staging his demonstration, Moss not only learns to channel his anger but also discovers that he is not as restricted by his anxiety and trauma as he had previously believed. He manages to overcome his fears enough to address the crowd, speak to the media, and even challenge the police both at the protest and at the press conference held in its aftermath.
Esperanza
Esperanza is a Puerto Rican-American lesbian with white adoptive parents and, at the beginning of the novel, Moss’s best friend. She is sensitive to Moss’s mental health and particularly adept at calming him down when he is having a panic attack, serving as a core part of his support network. She is outspoken and bold, and Moss loves the way that she does not “take shit from anyone” (40). However, she is also unaware of the privilege afforded her by her rich white parents and can be both ignorant of the realities of Moss’s life and prone, like her parents, to taking over the causes of more marginalized people without stopping to listen to them. This becomes an increasing source of tension between her and Moss. Initially, Moss suppresses his concerns, not overtly criticizing her when she refuses to accept Moss’s experiences as a poor person of color attending an underfunded school populated by students of color. However, he grows increasingly uncomfortable with her repeated displays of such behavior. Although she recognizes these traits in her own parents, even warning them that they “have to sit back and listen. You have to make sure not to make it about you” (197), she is unaware she has learned these same attitudes from them. Moss finally confronts her about this indirectly after Esperanza’s mother, Rebecca, tips the school off about the protest, her white privilege making her so ignorant that she genuinely believes that this will help prevent violence. Esperanza starts to understand slightly more then but does not truly recognize her issues until she is affected personally by the police brutality at the protest. Only then does she understand the realities of the situation and learn that she needs to trust Moss and the others when they talk about their lives and the oppression they face.
Javier
Javier is a young, gay, undocumented immigrant who forms a romantic relationship with Moss. He appears self-assured and extremely forward, although it becomes apparent that he is as inexperienced as Moss and not quite as confident and cocky as he appears. Indeed, as their relationship develops, they take on some of each other’s characteristics, Moss growing in confidence and Javier revealing more of his sensitive side. However, from the moment they meet, Javier is understanding and supportive. He does not judge Moss for being traumatized and is not put off by his panic attack at the station, still asking for his number afterwards. Indeed, he is so understanding and supportive that Shamika tells him that he should “marry that man right now” (69) because “If he’s already cool with you and your head, that’s a step above most people I’ve met” (70). He is also understanding when Moss asks him if he has ever had a relationship with a Black man before, recognizing why Moss might be skeptical of Javier’s motives. As Moss realizes only after Javier has died, Javier is the first person he has loved romantically, and the grief at his death is a catalyst for Moss changing his relationship with anger.
Wanda
Although she has work long hours at the post office since Moss’s father died, Wanda is still incredibly present in Moss’s life. She is caring and considerate, gently guiding him without judgement and with a great deal of love and acceptance. She has a background in community activism and only stopped after Moss’s father was murdered, something for which she believes she is responsible because she angered the police by filming another of their murders and releasing the footage to the police. However, she is still in contact with many of her old activist friends and quickly recruits them to the cause when Moss and the others start organizing a protest. She also helps to educate Moss and his friends on issues such as the way the media spin coverage to downplay the police’s culpability and subtly blame the victims of police violence: the realities of institutional racism and corruption. She also helps change Moss’s attitude towards his anger, revealing how, as she has herself experienced, it can consume and paralyze but can also be channeled and harnessed as a form of strength, a motivation to bring about change, and, ultimately, “a gift” (169). This reconceptualizing of anger is central to Moss’s character development and to the plot of the novel itself.
