Nickel Reformatory School

The Nickel Reformatory School is the novel’s primary setting. Nickel itself is fictional, but it is directly based on a real school called the Dozier School for Boys, which was located in Marianna Florida. After Elwood is wrongfully convicted of a crime, he is sentenced to attend Nickel. He is dismayed to find that the class offerings there are virtually nonexistent. The students are forced to spend much of their time doing unpaid labor. This labor makes large profits for the school and the state. The students are all male. There are black students and white students, but the school is segregated by race. The staff often beat students and sometimes even murder them, but the school never faces consequences or investigation. After Elwood tries to inform state inspectors about the truth of life at Nickel, the staff decide to kill him. Elwood and Turner...