Derek Johnson
Professor Robin Evans
English 112
November 17, 2010
Everyone on this planet has something in common and I’m not talking about the obvious things. Everyday we all face three dramatic elements; man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. self. The same is true for Cane, the main character in a dramatic piece entitled Menace II Society. Menace II Society is an urban movie, set in Watts in the late 1970’, about a man named Cane and his journey to find himself. Cane is also the person who is telling the story. Watts at that time was hard place to grow up and basically live for most African Americans. Throughout the movie Cane was faced with the same dramatic elements earlier mentioned. He is struggling through the whole movie to find himself and decide what he wants to do with himself before his time to choose runs out. First, I will talk about how Cane is presented with the man vs. man conflict.
Canes parents had died and he was living with his grandparents, this is a positive representation of man vs. man because, most grandparents want what is best for their grandchildren and they’ll go above and beyond to steer them in the right direction. “My grandpa was always coming at us with that religion…” The person who had the biggest influence on Cane was his best Friend O’ Dog. O’ Dog didn’t care what people thought about him, and he did what he felt he had to do to survive and get his respect, no matter the extent. I say this is an example of man vs. man because; our best friends will always influence our decisions and convince us to do some things we don’t want to do. “Now these m**** f***** smoked your G** d*** cousin in front of you n****, blew his head off in front of you and you ain’t gonna do s***”? O’ Dog said this to Cane when they were discussing how they were going to get the guys back who had jacked Canes cousin for his car. Cane also dealt with a lot of his conflicts internally, I believe they call this man vs. self.
After Cane had healed from the being jacked, O’ Dog came to him saying “word got back about them marks who jacked you and Harold, I know where they kick it at. You down with a 187?” Although Cane had never killed anyone he made up in his mind that he was going to get them back for killing his cousin and for shooting him. He replied “let’s do this”. At one point in the movie Cane had “gotten” him a car. He didn’t like the rims on it so he decided he had to find someone “slipping and jack them for his”. He was seeing this girl or maybe just messing around with her but she ended up pregnant. When he heard the new he said “what you telling me for it ain't mine”, “I wore the jimmy extra tight”. Cane had another positive influence in his life. Her name was Ronni and they had feelings for each other. She asked him to move to Atlanta with her and her son. He said to her “ain’t nothing going to change in Atlanta. I’m still going to be black. Just another n**** from the ghetto”, this is man vs. self because he was actually scared to leave and this was one of his excuses to stay. The ultimate representation of man vs. self happened towards the resolution of the movie. Cane had beat up a guy and he came back with his boys blasting. Cane and three of his friends were hit by bullets. Cane had got shot about 3 times then he saw his girlfriends little boy outside and he ran to home to protect him from getting shot, he was still getting shot in the process. He was hit 5-7 times and he was still able to protect the little boy, Anthony. I say that’s his ultimate showing of man vs. self because after his courage act was over, so was his life. Man vs. nature is the last dramatic element in this dramatic piece that I haven’t talked about.
Like I mentioned before Cane lived in Watts. Watts was run by drugs, gangs, and murder. His father was a drug dealer and his mother was an addict. “I caught on to the criminal life real quick. Instead of keeping me out of trouble, they turned me on to it”, he’s talking about his parents and their friends in that quote. In one of his conversations with Ronni, Cane tells her “you gotta be hard growing up out here”. Cane knew that the streets of Watts weren’t safe if you didn’t know how to survive and/or watch your back. He knew that any time he showed softness could be his last breath. Although Cane dies at the end of the movie, he is still the narrator of it too.
I will never understand how that works out. Menace II Society is a story, told by Cane, about and his life growing up in Watts. Cane made a lot of decisions in the movie some of them good ones and some of them bad ones. His grandfather once asked him if he cared if he lived or died. At the time Cane said “I don’t know.” At the end when he was dying in his friend Stacey’s arms, he recalled when his grandfather asked him that. He had an answer this time “Yea I do, but now it’s too late”. Overall, this is a good piece when it comes to drama. It has romance, comedy, and tragedy in it, all the ingredients of a good piece if used right. I view Cane as someone who was in the wrong places at the wrong times. Some of the things that happened to him, he brought upon himself but for the most part, the streets of Watts caught up with him. This is a movie that I could watch again and again. It shows real life situations and how some people really react to their environment.