Tribes

Tribes, by Catherine MacPhail, portrays teenage gang culture in many forms.

MacPhail, in her novel, has built a convincing picture of the rising number of gang incidents in a tamed manner.

Tribes explores the root cause of gangs. Parents not instilling discipline is probably the most common cause of gangs. Throughout the novel there is no intervention from parents when it is clear some parents know their child is not going to school or causing trouble around town. For example, in chapter 19, Kevin is invited to Salom’s house. His mum is very nice but Salom totally disrespects his mother, even slamming the door in her face when she was offering them drinks and food. At home Salom feels he can do anything he wants and this continues into the outside world.

Parents not disciplining their kids leads to unsupervised play in the streets, another root cause of gangs. The novel has many examples of the Tribe on the rampage. Just after Kevin joins the Tribe, he is introduced to their type of fun, not playing football, but disrupting people’s lives,

‘There were new games to be learned,

exciting games, dangerous games.’

Kevin doesn’t seem to want to believe that causing disorder with the Tribe is intolerable. He thinks it’s just simple fun, ‘exciting’ and ‘dangerous’ suggests Kevin knows he is doing wrong but he is enjoying the new found ecstasy from the gang’s ‘sport’. he believes that the gangs escapades aren’t insolent.

With children being unsupervised, gangs can influence individuals more and more to the extent where their life starts to depend on the gang.

Many people who are involved in

street gang culture are threatened with death if they even consider quitting. Gangs can manipulate their member’s behaviour into something, entirely different from their normal actions. Kevin would like to join the Tribe, but is put off by the initiation trial, walking a suspended plank of old wood, perilously positioned over a hundred foot drop still he convinces himself to do the Walk of Death,

‘‘He was going to attempt the Walk of Death’’

Kevin, if he was thinking rationally, would never dream of walking this plank. Yet the gang has taken control of his life ad he will do anything for the gang. Usually the Walk of Death’s name alone would put, any normal, uninfluenced thinking person, of the idea