Little Brother

“I’m a senior at Cesar Chavez High in San Francisco’s sunny Mission district, and that makes me one of the most surveilled people in the world.”

Marcus’s assertion that he is one of the most surveilled people in the world is an example of hyperbole, but it also introduces the theme of privacy versus safety in a technological world. At Cesar Chavez High, administrators use a variety of technological security measures to track students both on and off campus. Additionally, Doctorow employs situational irony by naming Marcus’s school, where student rights are violated daily, after Cesar Chavez, a 1960s activist for civil rights. 

“The sound I got wasn’t even a busy signal – it was like a whimper of pain from the phone system.”

When Marcus attempts to contact 911 to report Darryl’s stabbing, he cannot get through. Personifying the phone system as a creature in pain demonstrates how broken the city is after the bombing, and the breakdown in technology creates a surreal mood for the teens.

“I didn’t know what a terrorist looks like, though TV shows had done their best to convince me that they were brown Arabs with big beards and knit caps and loose cotton dresses that hung down to their ankles.”

In this example of stereotyping, Marcus is confused about the clean-cut American looks of his captors. His remark demonstrates the power of the media in shaping common misperceptions about terrorism.