Final Review

Overall, I felt that The Autobiography of Malcolm X was a very well-written, interesting book. Malcolm X's experiences teach us the several lessons that he learned over a course of a hard life, the most important of which being the idea of tolerance as the true means of social advancement. Having gone through a life of troubles and harsh times, this lesson and others can be accredited. Malcolm X's story, one of a man who completely changed his life around, from a lowly drug-dealer to one of the most influential African-American civil rights advocates, is definitely interesting and inspiring. I am fond of the switches in mentality that Malcolm X experienced in his life: from an uneducated way of thinking to a radical prejudice of whites, and from racism to the desire for cooperation and elimination or prejudice.  The switches in tone in these parts of the novel, from equable to infuriated to enlightened, relays the emotion that X felt at these specific times in his life. I enjoyed as well the use of quotations and italics to put emphasis on words and phrases that X probably felt were necessary to the overall comprehension of the writing and situations. X goes into depth about every major experience of his life, leaving out no event or situation that significant to the comprehension of the development of his character and the reasons why he grew to be the way he was. By incorporating this kind of detail into his writing, Malcolm X is able to relay his life story, all the while intertwining emotion into it so that the reader may be able to fully understand both the predicaments and feelings that he had to undergo and experience. Thus, the autobiography was not only written well and an intriguing read, but also one full of depth and life messages that one can take greatly from Malcolm X's life story.