Monster: The Autobiography of an LA Gang Member

Monster: The Autobiography of an LA Gang Member

Summary

The introverted incarceration writing of Kody Scott is a memoir of his sixteen years in Los Angeles as a gangbanger. This memoir is a blazing best seller and a classic book that is published in more than ten languages with more than 300,000 copies in the United States alone in printed form. Kody Scott was initiated in the Los Angeles gang naming the Crips by pumping eight blasts from a sawed off shotgun at a bunch of members of a rival gang, at that time he was only twelve. Kody Scott rapidly grown up into one of the most dreadful and fearsome combat combatant of the Crips gang by earning a well known name of “Monster”. This title was a reward for his acts of violence, cruelty and brutality that he committed and these actions also revolted other members of the gang. With the unavoidable and predictable jail term cramped him to an utmost security cell, a complete personal and political transformation is followed.

This memoir is written with a concept and viewpoint of Kody Scott who has spent many years in a criminal environment and gives the insight of it. Kody Scott has shared his experienced with great detail and depth which brings the chaotic and muddled world of the South Central Los Angeles and this gives the reader to experience it for few hours. He has does a marvelous job in his memoir by relating his near to death experiences like of being shot six times and by beaten cruelly by the guards of the prisoners which made him unconscious. This approach made a better effort and attempt to educate and edify adolescence that have enough time for doing this brutal job. This memoir of Kody Scott, which was one of the hardest members of the Crips gang, changed his life around, offers optimism and hope to other people who are still living a life which is deeply influenced by the crimes and violence (Shakur, 1993).

Discussion

Application to Theory

Kody Scott describes about his life story of how he entered and left the gang life of Crips. For more than thirteen years he was a strong member of the Eight Tray Gangster, a branch or set of Crips. Throughout this book, he has explained sometimes briefly and sometimes in full detail about his life that he has led when he was in the gang and when he was in prisons and jails for long time duration. These stories of his life he describes in his memoir includes the shootouts in markets, parks, houses, streets etc. drive-byes, kidnappings, fist fights, group beatings, selling and doing drugs, amputation, enemies deaths, car jacks, robbery, being shot, friend's death, police abuse, knife fights, jail riots and rapes, and all the other parts of gang life that are possible. It is hard to imagine about what all happened to a thirteen year boy and to a teenager. All these brutal crimes awarded him ...