Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The 57 Bus, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender and Sexuality
Adolescent Crime vs. Adult Crime
Binary Thought and Inclusive Language
Discrimination and Social Justice
Accountability, Redemption, and Forgiveness
Summary
Analysis
Richard spends his eighteenth birthday in Chad. He eventually earns his high school diploma and takes some vocational classes. He even gets a job and starts paying off his court fines. Richard is “slow to trust, slow to warm,” and he keeps mostly to himself. He still has two more birthdays to spend here, then “the next chapter of his life will finally begin.”
Richard’s time in the justice system has already begun to change him. His “goofy” personality has been stifled, and he becomes more introverted, which is no doubt an attempt to distance himself from the other inmates.
Themes
