The Nickel Boys: Genre 1 key example

Author Colson Whitehead took inspiration from the Dozier School, a state-run reform school in Florida with an infamous history of abuse and violence towards its Black students in particular. In 2013, after researchers discovered over 100 unidentified bodies in unmarked graves across the property, the Dozier School drew widespread national attention. The Nickel Boys takes place in Florida at the fictional Nickel Academy, modeled after the Dozier School. As a historical fiction novel, its exact plot, characters, and dialogue are imagined, but Whitehead brings the real-life legacy of the Dozier School to the forefront with his grim and shocking narrative. By blending history with fiction, Whitehead is able to expose and comment on the horrific nature of state-sanctioned violence without compromising the privacy and memory of Dozier’s real victims.

The Nickel Boys could also be considered a bildungsroman: a literary genre that explores the coming-of-age of its teen or young adult characters. In The Nickel Boys, Elwood and others come of age in the Nickel Academy. The barbaric practices and dangerous environment of Nickel Academy warps their perceptions of life and the world around them. Thus, readers gain insight into characters’ complex feelings towards their own development and the horrific uncertainty of their own futures.