Kryhoski is currently working as a freelance writer. In this essay, Kryhoski considers Sackler's use of contrasts as well as his historical consideration of the work.

The Great White Hope is a story of contrasts, of black versus white, or the dark versus the light. Two of Sackler's white characters, Cap'n Dan and Mrs. Bachman, use these contrasts in their own dramatic monologues to express their feelings about Jack Jefferson. Their feelings are a function of their own ignorance. For these characters, their ignorance serves as an impetus or as a reason for exercising racism. It is these voices, of both Cap'n Dan and Mrs. Bachman, that Sackler employs to illuminate belief systems fueling racism. Through both voices, the author is able to capture, with amazing historical accuracy, the current of prejudice running through white America at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Cap'n Dan describes Jack...