The House On Mango Street Silhouettes

Silhouettes is a crime novel set in 1980s New York, just after President Ronald Reagan wins the presidency campaign on November 6th 1984. Silhouettes focuses on Bill O’Hara’s investigation of the Tarot Card Vigilante, later turned killer, who leaves tarot cards at crime scenes that happen in the city. Silhouettes is told from: Bill O’Hara, Lo (Lois) O’Hara, who is married to Bill, Lizzie O’Hara, Bill and Lo’s daughter and Jesse Watson, a newspaper owners’ perspective. The secondary characters are: Terrence Robbie and Steve Robbie, Terrence’s son. The primary perspective is Bill O’Hara’s: a police detective who works at the 24th precinct in New York. Bill’s perspective is embedded within his stream of consciousness, as he recalls his story …show more content…

Bill is not assigned to the case until January 1985, once the media gets a hold of the information that a ‘vigilante’ is leaving tarot cards around the city at crime scenes. The Tarot Card vigilante is constantly compared to Bernie Goetz – a thirty-four-year-old white man who took the law into his own hands by claiming self-defence on a subway after four black youths tried to rob him of $5. Goetz responded by shooting the youths. Much like Goetz, the Tarot Card Vigilante sparks conversation because he inspires talk between those who live in the city. The Tarot Card Vigilante also takes the law into his own hands; by leaving clues for the police about future crimes he predicts. Koch, the mayor at the time much like Reagan was thought to have done nothing to protect or improve New York’s social …show more content…

Bill’s perspective and Lo’s perspective shift back to the Columbia protests of 1968 for four short chapters. The protest erupted because of the college’s involvement in the Vietnam war, as well as the concern over the allegedly segregated gymnasium being constructed near the college. Bill and Terrence were protesters, it was where and how they met. The protests resulted in the removal of students occupying several university buildings by the New York Police department. Bill comes to understand the personal vendetta formed by the Tarot Card killer against his family. Bill, realises he was like the Tarot card killer. Bill and the Tarot Card Killer both wanted the appreciation of life to be respected within their oppressed eras, but Bill and the Tarot Card Killer protested for the right of life in different