Caroline, or Change This Is Term Paper

Total Length: 844 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

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..Please Caroline, keep the change." The phrase "keep the change" usually means someone is giving a tip to a waitress or a waiter. So in a way, it is demeaning to Caroline.

Caroline herself is going through changes; she wonders if she should quit her job, and change her livelihood. She also changes in that she is nicer to Noah, and understands Noah's family better. Noah went through a change when his mother died of breast cancer; and Noah's stepmother Rose is actually a northern woman who changes into a southern woman. And because President Kennedy was killed, the American people are going through changes. Also, the Civil Rights Movement is basically demanding big changes in the way black folks are treated in the South; many blacks can't get good jobs, go to good schools, or even vote, because of segregation and prejudice. All those changes are playing out in society while this play is showing characters with their own changes.

When Noah leaves (accidentally) leaves twenty dollars (a gift he received for Hanukkah) in his pocket, Caroline claims it as her own, as she has been instructed to do. But this causes a big problem between Noah and Caroline, two people from very different cultures.
And when money comes into the play (who should get it?) both of them forget that they are friends in a household, and mean, racist, bigoted things are said. "I hate you! I hate you!" Noah screams at Caroline. "President Johnson has built a bomb special made to kill all Negroes!" Noah says. And Caroline says, "...Hell's where Jews go when they die." In the end, Caroline gives the money back to Noah and quits her job. That brings in more change, as Noah now has to give up his fantasy of Caroline being his replacement mom, and Noah changes by letting his stepmother tuck him in at night. But some things will never change, and on page 124, Caroline talks to Noah:

Someday we'll talk again but they's things we'll never say. That sorrow deep inside you, it's inside me too, and it never go away." The "sorrow" Caroline speaks of may be the prejudice that Jews and African-Americans both suffer through; the sorrow is also, for Noah, the loss of his beloved mother, and that never goes away for a little boy, or any man.

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