The Road to Memphis Overview

This Study Guide consists of approximately 44 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Road to Memphis.

The Road to Memphis Overview

This Study Guide consists of approximately 44 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Road to Memphis.
This section contains 286 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy The Road to Memphis Study Guide

The Road to Memphis Summary & Study Guide Description

The Road to Memphis Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:

This detailed literature summary also contains Related Titles and a Free Quiz on The Road to Memphis by Mildred Taylor.

Taylor's books about Cassie Logan and her family have been praised by critics because they provide readers with insight into racial tension in the Depression era, particularly in the segregated South. Taylor's descriptions and scenes are so credible that readers have often assumed that her books are autobiographical, that Taylor must have lived these stories. The problems that the Logans face are not sugar-coated; their friends sometimes die or must run away because they are the innocent victims of racial conflict. Most important, however, Taylor presents characters who stand up to oppression, making their voices heard. For the Logans, survival comes from family unity and education and by banding together with their neighbors.

The Road to Memphis is itself an important book because it lets readers see characters from Taylor's earlier books as they are on the verge of becoming adults. Cassie and Stacey are no longer able to hide behind their father, David Logan, and go on a journey during which they must confront racial hatred directly. As a result, as some reviewers have suggested, this is a bleaker book than some of the earlier Logan stories.

The book is not without hope, however—Cassie catches a glimpse of a successful Black man, Solomon Bradley, and begins to make plans for her own future. At the same time, Taylor captures most of the confusion that young adults feel as her characters try to make important decisions and as Cassie begins to struggle with romantic feelings that might threaten her plans to get an education. The Road to Memphis recaptures much of the feeling of the earlier books and should interest readers who have read them, as well as those who have not.

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This section contains 286 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy The Road to Memphis Study Guide
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