Random Family

Choose one characterand perform a character analysis based solely on the concept of gender. How do gender norms, mores, and expectations shape your chosen character’s identity and life path?

Choose one male character and one female characterand write a compare/contrast essay which focuses solely on the concept of gender. How does each character’s gender distinctly shape their identities, experiences, and opportunities? What relative advantages or disadvantages occur as a result of each character’s gender?

Analyze the manner in which state agencies (including, but not limited to: public housing, the Bureau of Child Welfare, police, and prisons) interact with the lives of the key characters in Random Family. In many instances the policies and practices of the state operate to sabotage the characters’ chances for success. Use direct quotes from the book, as well as outside research on state agencies and their policies, ideology, and methodology to support your analysis.

Review LeBlanc’s statements about how she went about constructing Random Family in the Authors Note. Then, locate interviews or other sources that document the manner in which LeBlanc went about constructing the book. Cite these sources, as well as the book itself, to write an essay that takes a position on the ethics regarding LeBlanc’s research and methodology. Incorporate ideas of racial and class privilege, the ethics of ethnography, and issues of fetishization in your essay.

Identify a distinct theme in Random Family, and state that theme within your thesis statement. Then, performed a detailed analysis of at least five quotes which demonstrate and communicate your stated theme.

Locate specific quotes that demonstrate the manner in which state policies and/or the policies of authority figures directly contravene and stymie characters’ attempts to lift themselves above their circumstances. Analyze your chosen quotes in order to parse and demonstrate the injustice that LeBlanc depicts through them.

Compare and contrast the prison with the street. In what ways are the two realms similar, and in what ways are they wholly distinct from one another. Focusing on one character, such as Cesar or Jessica, may be of particular use.

Parse the figure of the victim within Random Family. In what ways are characters victimized, and in what ways do they resist categorization as victims. Why do they do this? What is LeBlanc’s orientation toward the idea of the victim? Use direct quotes to support your analysis.