Literature Help: The Contender

By Students' Academy

“The Contender” by Robert Lipsyte was first published in 1967. It was the author’s debut novel. Robert Lipsyte is also a sports journalist.

The story of the novel revolves around Alfred Brooks, a seventeen years old black boy. Alfred happens to be a school dropout. He lives with his Aunt Pearl and her three daughters in Harlem, New York City.

Brooks joins a boxing club to get trained as a boxer. He takes it as an alternative to drugs and gang membership.

Literature Help: The Contender
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Apr 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310466052

Students' Academy

Easy study guides for the students of English literature.

Book preview

Literature Help: The Contender

Copyright

Literature Help: The Contender

Students' Academy

Copyright@2015 Students' Academy

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved

Chapter One: Introduction

The Contender by Robert Lipsyte was first published in 1967. It was the author’s debut novel. Robert Lipsyte is also a sports journalist.

The story of the novel revolves around Alfred Brooks, a seventeen years old black boy. Alfred happens to be a school dropout. He lives with his Aunt Pearl and her three daughters in Harlem, New York City.

Brooks joins a boxing club to get trained as a boxer. He takes it as an alternative to drugs and gang membership.

The novel presents the story of Alfred after his friend James gets arrested on the charges of robbing the grocery store where Alfred works. He confronts Major who happens to be the leader of the local gang.

Major is responsible for making James a drug addict. Alfred goes through several harsh experiences and events which teach him that life is not only fighting and winning, it is more about being a contender.

Robert Lipsyte, the author of The Contender was born in New York City in 1938. Right from his early years of life, he began to show talent for writing. Both of his parents were teachers, so most of his spare time was spent in reading and writing.

Robert had decided at an early age that he wanted to become a writer. His books are highly influenced by the work of the writers he has read. He has very skillfully integrated some of the techniques of his favorite authors into his own texts.

According to Robert Lipsyte, he learned from the books written by Richard Halliburton that first an author must live and sweat blood before he can write about it.

John Steinbeck is another one of Robert Lipsyte’s favorite novelist. He says that from Steinbeck he learned a compassion for characters and a sense of place. He also learned how to appreciate nature from Steinbeck.

According to Lipsyte, he has also been highly influenced by Holden Caulfield, the central character in the novel The Catcher in the Rye.

Having graduated from Columbia University in 1957, Lipsyte began to work in the copy room at the New York Times. He worked there for fourteen years, and during that period he wrote a sports column which became internationally syndicated.

According to Lipsyte, one of his assignments at his work inspired him to write The Contender. He describes that he was on an assignment to cover