47 pages • 1 hour read
Black And White
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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Black”
Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s depiction of racism and racial discrimination.
Chapter 1 introduces Marcus at the moment that his friend Eddie fires a gun, shooting a man by accident. Marcus flees the scene and runs to his house.
He then introduces himself and his best friend Eddie. Marcus is Black and Eddie is white. They are known as "Black and White" to their peers at Long Island City High School because their close friendship defies the racial tensions in their neighborhood in New York City. They are stars of their high school basketball team, and both are being considered for college scholarships.
Eddie comes up with the idea of robbing people to get extra money for their senior dues and for new shoes and convinces Marcus to join him in his plan. Eddie gets his grandfather's gun, and he and Marcus rob two people in the parking lot of a hardware store—a woman and an older man—-until they have enough money for their dues. Before they commit their last robbery, their basketball coach Casey gives the team a speech about not getting into trouble over the weekend—the same speech he gives every week. Marcus and Eddie return to the parking lot that night preparing for another stickup, and Eddie asks Marcus if he wants to hold the gun. Marcus declines. They wait, looking for a target, until a man walks out of the hardware store. Marcus and Eddie approach him, and when Eddie attempts to rob the man, Marcus realizes the man is Black.
Chapter 2 Summary: “White”
Eddie runs all the way home after shooting the man, the gun still in his pocket. He returns the gun to its hiding place in a shoebox in the attic. Avoiding his family, Eddie goes back out to look for Marcus and finds him at the basketball courts in the neighborhood, where a couple of their other teammates, Moses and X, are playing. Eddie and Marcus leave to talk about what happened. Eddie says he does not think the man they shot is dead and that the bullet only grazed his head. Marcus swears he knows the man from somewhere. They consider going back to the scene to see if police are there and/or if the man is still alive, but decide against it. They walk around the neighborhood until Marcus notices the blood on Eddie’s coat; they throw the coat away, and Marcus and Eddie go back to Marcus’s house so that Eddie can borrow one of his. Then, Marcus walks Eddie home through the Circle, the park where the boys play basketball. Eddie reflects on when he first started playing there at only 13, and how this was “where ‘Black and White’ was born” (20). Now, he notes, things do not feel the same.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Black”
Marcus cannot stop thinking about the man they shot and is sure he knows him from somewhere. He stays home all day the next day, listening to the radio and watching the news for a story about what happened, wanting to know if the man is still alive, but he hears nothing. His mother is suspicious that he is indoors all day on a Saturday. He claims he is saving his strength for the upcoming game, and his mother does not believe him. On Sunday, Marcus gets a call from Rose, Eddie’s sister, inviting him to come to the movies with her and Eddie’s family. Marcus and Rose have romantic feelings for each other but do not act on them because Eddie is opposed to it. Marcus notes that he has never dated a white girl before. Eddie calls afterward and says the theater they are going to is across the street from where they shot the man. They are both nervous about going.
Marcus meets with Eddie, Rose, and their family at the bus stop. When the bus arrives, Marcus suddenly realizes where he recognizes the man they shot from—he is a bus driver on the bus that runs past Marcus’s house. The group boards the bus, and when they get off at their stop, Marcus tells Eddie where he knows the man from. They walk to the theater and pass by the parking lot where they shot the man, and there is nothing there. This puts Marcus and Eddie at ease a bit; they go into the theater and watch The Count of Monte Cristo, forgetting for a moment about what happened.
That night, Marcus has a dream about his father, who left after his younger sister was born. The next day, Marcus and Eddie go through their day at school. Since they have not heard anything on the news about the robbery, they assume the man survived and everything is okay. They move on to thinking about college; they plan to stay in New York and attend the same school so they can continue playing basketball together.
Chapter 4 Summary: “White”
Eddie gets home, and his dad has a serious discussion with him. He talks about how both he and Eddie’s grandfather worked at the Department of Sanitation, but he wants Eddie to do something different—to go to school and get a degree, not just play basketball. Eddie has trouble sleeping that night.
The next day is their basketball game. During homeroom, Eddie meets up with Rebecca, a girl he is dating. After school, Eddie goes directly to the gym. He reflects on when he and Marcus were still in middle school and would watch LIC’s games. The former captain, Jason Taylor, was killed on the court after a racially motivated riot broke out in the stands during a game, and a white young man stabbed Jason with the leg of a chair.
A couple of hours later, the game starts. College scouts are watching, and the team is winning by the time halftime starts. While Coach Casey is giving a brief speech, he is called away by the principal. When he returns and calls the team out for the second half, Eddie notices that Marcus is gone. When Eddie goes to look for him, he sees Marcus being handcuffed. Coach Casey reports to the rest of the team that Marcus was arrested, but they continue the game and win.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The story begins when the main conflict is triggered, creating tension and heightening the stakes before Marcus Brown introduces himself, his best friend, and his neighborhood and circumstances. The story is presented in first person from Marcus and Eddie’s alternating points of view. This allows the reader to get a sense of the characters’ distinct voices as well as their internal thoughts and feelings. As a young adult novel, voice is vital to the narrative tone. Volponi aims to make his central characters relatable and realistic by crafting their voices and dialogue in a manner authentic to teenage boys, with blunt, straightforward language and occasional swearing. The novel uses a dual point of view so that Volponi can explore both boys’ reactions to the conflict and portray the contrasts in their lives and personalities.
The contrast between the two protagonists, Marcus (“Black”) and Eddie (“White”), is central to the novel. The opening chapters introduce their friendship and bond; Marcus describes them as “almost like real blood brothers” (3), and Eddie’s family has embraced Marcus like a son. However, it is clear that the accidental shooting and its legal and ethical consequences will test the strength of their friendship. This is symbolized by their running in different directions immediately after the shooting.
Despite their close friendship, the opening chapters show the contrasts in their personalities. The two boys begin to emerge as foils, or characters who illuminate one another through contrasting qualities. For example, Marcus initially hesitates about getting involved in crime, while Eddie is more comfortable with the idea. Marcus has feared disappointing his mother in the past, but now feels as if he needs to begin “pulling [his] own weight” (7), and feels a sense of responsibility toward his family. Marcus largely functions as a source of support for Eddie. He loans Eddie his gloves even though both of them are cold and gives Eddie answers on math tests, foreshadowing how he will put Eddie first even when it comes to his own imprisonment. Marcus does not hesitate to share the accountability and guilt when Eddie accidentally shoots the man during their stickup, admitting that both boys were at fault. Eddie, in contrast, is more self-focused. In the aftermath of the shooting, he is riddled with guilt and anxiety, though he does not openly acknowledge this even to Marcus. In Chapter 4, the text suggests that his internal conflict stems from his father’s expectations to strive for better opportunities than he or Eddie’s grandfather did.
These chapters explore Racial Tension in Urban Settings, a central focus of the novel. Marcus draws attention to the fact that his friendship with Eddie is an anomaly in their neighborhood, where Black people and white people do not typically get along. Even their nicknames, “Black” and “White”, directly contradict the idea that their friendship transcends race, as these labels are a constant reminder of their racial difference. Marcus is also reluctant to act on his feelings for Eddie’s sister Rose, showing that the racial barrier between them may play more of a role than either of them realize.
Through Marcus and Eddie’s reactions in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the novel explores Integrity in the Face of Guilt and Consequences. Marcus was initially hesitant to take part in the robberies altogether, but assumes responsibility, implying that the shooting is his fault because he did not hold the gun when Eddie asked him to. Eddie, largely the instigator behind the robberies, downplays the severity of the situation despite his fear and guilt.
This section introduces Marcus and Eddie’s dreams for their futures. This is a coming-of-age, young adult novel, where the protagonists stand at the precipice of the rest of their lives, and the decisions they make shape their paths for better or worse. The opening section of the novel shows everything that Marcus and Eddie stand to lose as a result of their decision to commit robberies—basketball scholarships, the respect of their peers and their families, and their bond as friends. With the accidental shooting, all of these things hang in the balance. Their actions in the following chapters will test not only their bond, but their values and integrity, and demonstrate the challenge of making the right choice when futures and dreams are at stake.
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By Paul Volponi
