A father, two sons and an unlikely road to manhood – it is what The Beautiful Struggle is about. Ta- Nehisi tells the story of his life, about his parents, siblings, teachers, friends and other people, who surrounded him and has at least minimal influence on his “road to manhood”. The young black boy wasn’t a typical kid; his environment greatly influenced his behavior. There was a struggle inside boy’s head – his father who taught him Knowledge on the one hand, and “streets professors”, bad boy from bands, on the other. And he could unite both these extremes. He fell anger and love, passion and dull simultaneously and it was his individuality. He knew that his way of life wont lead him to success and he need to study but he couldn’t do that because he didn’t like it. As well as his elder brother Bill. They were bad boys, who were educated on streets mostly, because they thought it was cool.
Behavior was their major problem at school, one day Ta- Nehisi even kicked his English teacher because it seemed to him that that this man abused him. He believed that real life is outside the classroom and staying there was just a waste of time. as for him, streets were better than school because they taught really important things and those lessons are obligatory to attend. But he wasn’t a stupid boy; his father provided him with books and knowledge, and although he was a talented boy, he wrote poems and it was best time for him. Parents couldn’t do anything with his unwillingness to go to the school, and long talks and constant preachers were of no use. But they were trying hard and little by little boys began to understand what they meant and later they entered universities and there was bright future in front of them.
The greatest influence on Ta- Nehisi’ s life had his dad, a veteran of Vietnam, a man with strong spirit and unique intelligence. He grew up in poverty and violence. His crazy father had a great amount of children, some of them were by his own daughters and it was the worst thing about this man. So, Paul decided, that he will never be like his father and his children will be raised in lovely and friendly atmosphere and he fulfilled his promise: although he had seven children by four women, he took care of each of them and spent a lot of time and efforts trying to educate them although sometimes it was too hard and even almost impossible to do that but he had faith in his heart and God gave him power to fulfill his mission of a good father.
