Justice At Night - Adaptation

Justice At Night

Using relevant information from the whole text, imagine you are Joe and produce your own diary entry for that night, writing the next day. You should adapt the text and write about 300 words. (Written, Diary; Describe/Explain; Personal)

I wish we hadn’t of even bought the car, it is a piece of junk and a waste of money.

The two men who gave us a lift seemed nice enough, after all they did offer to drop us off to our destination for free of charge. They seemed nice until one of them mentioned that they were attending a lynching. I’ve never been to a lynching and therefore I had no idea of what to expect, I’ve read about them and even heard about them and I am totally against the idea of setting a person a light.

I drank the corn drink because they offered it to me, I was none the wiser to question what it was. It tasted disgusting, it felt like I was drinking fire; however, the two men found it hilarious at the fact that I coughed whilst drinking it.

We arrived at the lynching area at 15:00pm, we were tired, we just wanted to go to carry on with our traveling. The men greeted each other in a somewhat happy manner which is quite strange because a man was about to get lynched. They didn’t even have any proof of Hyacinth’s crime, they did not know if he had even committed a crime. I wanted to say something, but who was I? I was just as bad as the other onlookers. I couldn’t stop them, well I wouldn’t stop them.

“Please boss, I didn’t do it! PLEASE!” He shouted and exclaimed for his justice, but no one was willing to listen. After all a white woman is always going to be believed over a black person, it doesn’t matter whether or not justice has been served.

I hear that when I go to sleep at night, wondering whether he deserved to be lynched, whether I should of stuck up for him.

Commentary :

Within the extract I included a lot of Joe’s perspectives to ensure that the audience knew that it was him speaking about what had occurred the night before. The use of the personal pronouns ‘I’ and ‘I’ve’ emphasis that it is him talking and not his friend. I did not include an opening sentence, because I thought that it was irrelevant and by me going straight in to his experience the events would be more vibrant.

In addition the emotions included, were to ensure that we know what his feelings are towards the issue of lynching, and how he feels. “Please boss, I didn’t do it! PLEASE!” This quote has stayed with Joe and shows that he thinks that Hyacinth did not deserve the torture and lynching; however, he could not do anything.

In order to get the audience involved, I used a rhetorical question “but who was I?”, I wanted the audience to think about what they would do in the same situation and therefore whether or not they would of said something.