Born a Crime – Eleanor and Park

In the book, “Born a Crime”, Trevor Noah is a colored boy, born and raised in South Africa. His mother is South African and his father is of Swiss-German decent. Due to the laws of Apartheid, his parents were prohibited to be together, even though they got along very well.

As a result of this, Trevor’s mother began a relationship with a new man, Abel. Abel described by Trevor, was a nice man, but he was an alcoholic with a very short temper, often mistreating his friends and family.

While reading this section of “Born a Crime”, I immediately connected it to a book I have previously read, called “Eleanor and Park”. I made this connection because in both books, the main character had a stepfather who was an alcoholic with a bad temper who mistreated them, and or the loved ones around them.

The significance of this connection is because I have previously experienced another book with an almost identical situation so I can better understand what Trevor is going through, because it is just like what Eleanor went through with her stepfather, Richie.

Both Abel and Richie have joined families with multiple kids, starting with good intentions, but after a while, their addiction to alcohol consumes them, and there short temper is exposed and they begin to hurt the loved ones that surround them, both physically and emotionally.

While writing about the connections between the two books, I began to wonder, why didn’t Trevor’s mom, Nombuyiselo (Patricia), and Eleanor’s mom, Sabrina, end relations with these men, considering all the pain the men caused the women themselves and their children?

My answer to this question is, I believe that the women didn’t end the relations with the men because still at this point in time, men were still clearly dominant over women, and the women ended up being too consumed by fear. They feared how the men would react if they tried to stand up to them or fight back.