초록 열기/닫기 버튼

This study examines how Maniac Magee’s play interventions for the people in Two Mills correct their racialist mind-set in Jerry Spinelli’s Maniac Magee. As Johan Huizinga asserts, children want to have fun through their engagement with unreal but absolute world-order in various kinds of play situations. Play intervention provides children with the ground for releasing their irresolvable wishes in the imaginary settings, consequently leading them to rediscover who they are. The acts of play intervention make Magee recognize the importance of continuing efforts to resolve racial disharmony. As a mediator swinging back and forth between East End (black residence) and West End (white residence), Magee recognizes that racial stereotypes are the invention of communication breakdown. He finds that mutual ignorance and sheer indifference worsen the situations. Magee tries hard to unshackle racial ideas among the people. At the end of the novel, his efforts are rewarded when Two Mills residents across black and white communities embrace him as their own.