NCHS AP English Language

Author Kyle Smith/ Kate Pennebaker

Byron de la Beckwith, the man accused of killing African American leader Medgar Evers, should be exonerated according tom the author of Bob Dylan and Philosophy. Dylan also believed this himself in the song "Who killed Davey Moore?" in which Moore is the cover name for Beckwith. He believed that Beckwith was a pawn to society; a man who did not know who his friends and enemies were. Instead of blaming the whole crime on this crime on this radical white man, Dylan explains that the evil of politics brings out our vulnerability and "pawnibility," with which I agree with. Everyone knows that the pawn is the weaked peice used on the chessboard. It is easily manipulated and the first to be taken out of the game. Dylan used the comparison of a pawn to Beckwith in order to prove that a man with the right morals would never kill a man of different color. This analogy proves that Beckwith was a man driven with a political desire to regain power for whites. I believe that he tried to defend the Apartheid rule in the southern US, which many whites tried to do back during this time. If Beckwith would not have killed Evers, shame would have been brought upon his name and he would be shunned away frmo Southern societies. A pawn reminds me of a kamikaze pilot, someone willing to take a risk even if he/she does not want to.The pilot is Mr.Beckwith, and th south represents the Japanese army. The moral of this lesson taught by Dylan is that our society's politics control the man, not that the man can control politics. The pawn analogy used by Dyaln alalyzes how Beckwith's reason to murder Evers corresponds to the overpowering force of politics and peer pressure. He was easily molded by the people around him which made him vulnerable.

posted by NCHS AP English Language III @ 3:01 PM