Monster, walter dean myers

Question

short essay #1; steve imagines the defense attorney is looking at him, wondering "who the real steve harmon was ". (92)how would you answer that question?  Steve himself says he films his life to try to " look for a true image". (281)why do you think this question of who he is remains so important to steve? use textual evidence to  support your answer inn a one half page essay. 

Answer 1

I would suggest writing about the dichotomy between the way he sees himself, and the way he is seen be society. I think that he is attached to the idea of film as showing objective "truth," because he realizes that people's perceptions of him often don't match what he sees in himself. So maybe he wants the film to show him for who he really is (who he believes himself to be) or maybe he wants to the film to show how others see him so he can see it for himself. Either way, he's looking for resolution to the incongruence of his inner perception of himself vs. the outside world's perception of him. Good or bad, he's tired of the discrepancy.