NCHS AP English Language

Patrick Collins' Beckwith Essay

When asked the question of whether or not Byron de la Beckwith is a pawn, you cannot answer until you decide how you view the term pawn. You can change your opininon of Byron de la Beckwith depending on whether you look at the term pawn literaly or spmbolically.

If you look at the word pawn in a literal comparison to Byron then you are most likely not going to draw many comparisons between him, a human, and a plastic chess piece. When you compare Byron de la Beckwith, a man you have no background information on, with a chess piece you are going to think there is no way that the two could be related in any way. In order to understand how Byron de la Beckwith and a pawn are alike you must first understand what a pawn is and second you must know some background information on Byron de la Beckwith. When you think of a pawn you think of the most basic chess peice on the board. It is not very valuable and is usually used to defend more valuable pieces. Byron de la Beckwith was used in a similar was. He was set up to shoot the officer of the NAACP by a person who believed that Byron's life was less valuable that his own. Byron and a pawn were both manipulated and molded, possibly against their own beliefs, to do what the controller desire. To use an analogy, Byron is as mindless as the chess pieces are in a board game. Both are controlled by something other that their own free will.

Only after you look into what a pawn is and who Byron is, can you make a decision on whether they are alike or not. If a person looks at him like a chess piece they are not going to draw a comparison, but if a person looks at the story of Byron andthe deeper meaning of being a pawn, then they will find that the two are in fact very similar.

posted by NCHS AP English Language III @ 2:10 PM