Monster

Monster Summary | Plot Summary

Walter Dean Myers creates the story of sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon, from Steve's point of view, as he struggles with the fact that he is being tried for felony murder. It is a trial that, if the jury finds him guilty, could result in the death penalty at worst, and at best, over twenty years in prison. Steve is a young filmmaker, and as a result, Myers writes the novel in two forms. Most sections open with a narrative from Steve, as written in a notebook that he keeps in prison and in the courtroom, and then close in a screenplay format, where the characters' names are given in all-capital letters and camera directions accompany the dialog.

The general plot is simple. The reader first hears from Steve in a prologue narrative where he describes what it is like to be in jail as he waits for his trial to proceed. The plot moves ahead to the trial and fleshes out the story with flashbacks to scenes before Steve is arrested and shortly afterward. The psychological plot becomes more complex as Steve's emotions ride a looping rollercoaster immersed in fear and doubt. He hates and fears the jail environment, with its constant threat of violence and sexual violation. He doubts his own innocence and tries to convince himself that he is not guilty. He believes that his attorney thinks that he is guilty. He knows his mother still loves him, but his father distances himself from Steve because, Steve feels, his father no longer knows who his son is. Steve is not sure himself who he is. Is he a good person or a monster?

The story moves from jail to courtroom and back again. Sprinkled within the real-time plot, glimpses of Steve's neighborhood come in through the screenplay to reveal conversations that he has had with his co-defendant, how he was treated after being arrested, and attitudes in his Harlem neighborhood. Along with the testimony from witnesses, the events leading up to Steve's arrest become relatively clear. Two men enter a drugstore to rob it. The owner of the drugstore pulls a gun, and one of the men struggles with the owner. Someone shoots the owner to death with his own gun. The two men take cash and cigarettes, and then leave the crime scene to have a chicken dinner in a fast food restaurant.

Later, police investigate the crime. They take photos of the murdered storeowner and try to identify suspects, but because the detectives cannot lift any useable fingerprints, the case looks difficult. Along comes an informant, presently doing time in jail, with a story that eventually implicates Steve and his acquaintance, James King, in the murder. Another suspect, Richard "Bobo" Evans, testifies that he and King planned the robbery. Evans is serving time for selling drugs to an undercover officer; an event that happened after the murder and after Evans was implicated in the murder by yet another prisoner's story. Evans also testifies that King shot the victim and that Steve was part of the robbery team, acting as a lookout man. This testimony ties Steve to the murder and greatly damages his defence case.

Kathy O'Brien, Steve's attorney, openly tells Steve that his chances are slim to none unless he somehow distances himself from King and the robbery turned murder. Drama builds as Steve doubts his own innocence and writes some passages in his notebook that could be incriminating. O'Brien warns him not to write anything in the notebook that he would not want the prosecuting attorney to see, but the reader sees what he has written. Is there anything wrong with walking into a drugstore and looking around for mints? Indeed, there is something wrong if the purpose was to check if the store was clear before the robbery. Had he done this on the day of the robbery? Was Evans truthful when he testified that Steve did walk out of the drugstore? Was the lack of a specific sign an indication that the coast was clear for the robbery? Had Steve walked a moral tightrope by not signalling anything? Could this have been a code worked out between Steve and King before the robbery, where no signal meant that the coast was clear, but some kind of actual signal meant that the robbery should be aborted?

The ambivalence of the situation becomes a clear threat to Steve's life, perhaps not with the death penalty, but definitely with a minimum of over twenty years in prison. He is about to lose his youth to prison, and possibly his life as he contemplates suicide. O'Brien decides that Steve must take the stand and demonstrate to the jury that he is innocent. She prepares him for this by coaching him on how to respond through a game where she asks questions and Steve answers them. If the answer is good, she turns a paper cup right side up. If not, she turns the cup upside down, and Steve has to try again until he gets the answer correct. This harkens back to a time when Steve stated that he was not guilty, and O'Brien responded that he should have said that he did not do the crime. Is this coaching intended to hide Steve's guilty feelings from the jury? Are the guilty feelings prompted from actual guilt or fear?

When it comes time for the defence to build their cases, Steve performs well while being questioned. He refers to the other robbery participants as acquaintances whom he hardly talked with at all. The conversations were all short and pointless, just polite acknowledgments or talk about ball games. Had he been in the drugstore on the day of the murder? No. What had be been doing on that day? He was mentally taking notes about filming the neighborhood. Was he nervous, and did he need to take a break? No. O'Brien's work with Steve seems to have worked.

King does not take the stand in his own defence. The evidence is stacked against him because he did participate in the robbery, and Evans has testified that he was the shooter in the murder. Will Briggs, his attorney, keep him out of jail with his closing statement? O'Brien does not think so. That happens only in the movies, and as has been emphasized earlier in the story, this is reality. This is the real deal, and it is not pretty. O'Brien has a better chance of moving the jury to Steve's side. His involvement with the robbery is doubtful, and therefore his guilt for the murder is also doubtful. The jury should not convict Steve on murder charges with this lingering doubt playing a role. The two defence lawyers give their closing arguments followed by the prosecution's closing argument. What will the jury decide? The plot has built drama to the expected climax where the reader finds out, "who done it."

What the reader actually finds out is who the jury thinks "done it." The jury finds King guilty and Steve innocent. But is he in reality? The law states that anybody involved in a murder is as guilty as the person doing the actual murder. The prosecution has argued that if Steve had entered the drugstore on that fateful day and given a passive signal that the coast was clear for the robbery, he is as guilty as the killer. After all, what if he had not been the lookout? Would the robbery have been aborted in its early planning stage? What if he had signalled that the coast was not clear? Would not the robbery been stopped, leaving the victim to live? The argument was strong and the last thing that the jury heard before deliberating. Yet the jury found Steve innocent.

The ending of the story takes a twist that leaves the reader with the question of Steve's guilt or innocence unanswered. First, O'Brien turns away from Steve's outstretched arms after the not-guilty verdict is announced. She gathers her papers and leaves without acknowledging him, abandoning Steve to wallow in his own doubt about whether he is a good person or a monster. In the epilogue, Steve searches for the answer. Is his reaction coming from the stress of prison and the trial, or is he wrestling with feelings that he will never shake? Are these feelings of being a monster based on the truth that he did passively signal the all-clear to the robbers, and thereby he has blood on his hands? Is this what O'Brien saw in Steve when she turned away? If not, what did she see? Was O'Brien's behavior simply her keeping a proper professional distance from her client? Perhaps O'Brien is tired of working as a defence attorney. She did comment early in the story that she had been in court too many times.

The ambivalence of Steve's guilt or innocence is a plotting strategy meant to keep the reader's mind working on the themes of the story long after the reading is done. Myers wrote this story for a youthful audience, and his plotting of it masterfully speaks to young readers in highly personal ways that deliver maximum impact while using a minimum of words. The story is a relatively short work as novel lengths go, but as the simple language works, so does the tight structure of the plot line.