Thursday, April 3, 2014

What are some quotes from the novel Monster by Walter Dean Myers that reveal Wendell Bolden’s motivation for testifying?

Wendell Bolden is a criminal who told Salvatore Zinzi that he received cigarettes from someone involved in a robbery. When Bolden testifies, Petrocelli asks what Bolden was in jail for at the time that he spoke with Mr. Zinzi. Bolden mentions that he was in jail for assault. Petrocelli then asks, "But the charges were dropped?" (Myers 52). Bolden responds by saying, "Yeah, they were dropped" (Myers 52). When Petrocelli asks...

Wendell Bolden is a criminal who told Salvatore Zinzi that he received cigarettes from someone involved in a robbery. When Bolden testifies, Petrocelli asks what Bolden was in jail for at the time that he spoke with Mr. Zinzi. Bolden mentions that he was in jail for assault. Petrocelli then asks, "But the charges were dropped?" (Myers 52). Bolden responds by saying, "Yeah, they were dropped" (Myers 52). When Petrocelli asks him to describe the conversation he had with Mr. Zinzi, Bolden says,



"I got some cigarettes from a guy who told me he was in on a drugstore robbery up on Malcolm X Boulevard. I knew a dude got killed, and I was thinking of trading what I knew for some slack" (Myers 53).



Wendell Bolden's motivation for sharing information with the police and testifying was clearly to get a shorter sentence by having his assault charges dropped. When Asa Briggs cross-examines Bolden, Briggs comments that Wendell saved himself some "heavy jail time by pointing the finger at Mr. King." Bolden responds by saying that he was only trying to do the right thing, which is obviously a lie. Wendell Bolden already admitted that he wanted to trade in information on the robbery for some "slack."

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