45 pages • 1 hour read
True Notebooks: A Writer's Year at Juvenile Hall
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Symbols & Motifs
Victor's Horse
In Chapter 26, the kids meets a cowboy. Inmate Victor Martinez skillfully rides a horse, owing to his time growing up on a ranch. Victor is at home on the horse in a way he is not anywhere else. This is an aspect of him no one knew about and causes them to completely reconsider their opinion of him. When Victor is finished riding, the cowboy tending the horse tells him he could work training horses and teaching riding; this is not something Victor has considered, and he is immediately taken aback.
This moment speaks to the undiscovered quality of each of the inmates, which their time and presence in juvenile hall closes off. Eventually, the inmates learn to see themselves wrongly; i.e., in the narrow framework of their prison environment. The symbolic aspect of this episode is not Victor's skill with the horse, but his surprise at the knowledge that horse husbandry was an option for him, that this possibility still existed. While it seems natural and obvious for those on the outside, the way the author presents this scene, and Victor's personality up to that point, highlights how the limited expectations and prejudices of this environment work on both the readers, and the student-inmates.
Mark's Cello
Mark's cello is a symbol of two things: his attempt to recover his own writing ability, and his ability to connect with the student-inmates at Central Juvenile Hall. The concert occurs early in the book, as Mark is having trouble connecting with his students.
The cello itself has special importance to Mark. Mark was once a serious cellist, but abandoned practicing seriously, he says until he listened to musician Yo-Yo Ma. While Mark doesn't explain exactly what this means, it becomes clear that he has long since lost his confidence. However, when Mark is asked to play the cello for the inmates during an arts festival, he casually mentions his late mother, how much his playing meant to her, and how much he missed her. In the midst of the holiday season, this resonates especially well with the boys.
Throughout True Notebooks, Mark's struggles to connect with his students as a teacher echo his own struggles as an artist. As a writer, he has been for some time struggling to complete work on a novel, and initially sought to work at Central Juvenile Hall as a way of finding direction, as well as inspiration for a character. However, as he accepts his vulnerabilities, and chooses to simply communicate honestly, he is able to succeed as an artist and an educator: he both finishes his novel and fosters real connections with his students.
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