Part II, Chapters 17 through 23 Summary and Analysis

In chapter seventeen, McCall is taken to jail and notes that the way a man enters jail says a lot about him, including whether he's been in jail before. He meets a man here named Moses Battle who teaches McCall about playing chess. Moses, called Mo, says that chess is like life and McCall realizes that he's spent all his time trying to capture the pawns while thinking they were kings and playing without thinking ahead so that his only option is accepting the consequences. In chapter eighteen, McCall earns a spot in the prison library as a way to help pass time and discovers literature relevant to his life and situation. Specifically, he finds the book called "Native Son," and soon reads Malcolm X as well, realizing that there must be a higher power...