41 pages • 1 hour read
Ben Carson, Cecil MurpheyGifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 8–9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary: College Choices
Having ten dollars, Carson can send an application to only one college. As he considers which to choose, he determines that he will never again get “sidetracked by the need for peer approval”—the factor which, he says, kept him from being first in his high school graduating class (74). He chooses Yale, and when he receives his acceptance, he greets the news “calmly, and perhaps even a bit arrogantly, reminding myself that I had already accomplished just about everything I’d set out to do” (74). Although he expected to take Yale “by storm,” he finds himself for the first time surrounded by students who exceed his capabilities. His study techniques from high school—reading whatever he wants to and then cramming for exams—turns out not to work, to his great surprise.
His impending final in chemistry at the end of the first semester becomes the make-or-break moment. “I didn’t have the slightest hope of passing chemistry, because I hadn’t kept up with the material,” he recalls. If he fails chemistry, he cannot stay in the pre-med program, which will end his dream of becoming a doctor. He prays for guidance about what he should do if he cannot be a doctor, and cannot think of anything. So, he prays again, asking, “Either help me understand what kind of work I ought to do, or else perform some kind of miracle and help me to pass this exam” (78). Carson spends two hours studying, apologizes to God for failing God and himself, and then goes to sleep. He dreams of a “nebulous figure” who appears before him in the chemistry lecture hall and works chemistry problems on the board while Carson takes notes, which he writes down when he awakens. Upon opening the exam booklet shortly thereafter, he discovers that “the exam problems were identical to those written by the shadowy dream figure” (80). He concludes that it was a miracle, that “the God of the universe, the God who holds galaxies in His hands, had seen a reason to reach down to a campus room on Planet Earth and send a dream to a discouraged ghetto kid who wanted to become a doctor” (80–81). Carson’s reaction is two-pronged: he feels certain that God has special things destined for him, and he resolves to learn how to study. When the grades are posted, he finds that he earned a ninety-seven.
Chapter 9 Summary: Changing the Rules
Carson discusses his summer jobs, focusing on four. First, he discusses his job at Ford Motor Company between high school and college, which he receives due to the insistence of his high school guidance counselor. This job teaches him that while influence can get you in the door, “productivity and the quality of my work were the real tests” (83). The next summer, Carson gets a job supervising a highway crew near Detroit. The workers are inner-city kids with an attitude. While the other supervisors deal with this by permitting minimal labor to count for a day’s work, Carson “didn’t go by the standard procedures.” He does not let anyone know that he is getting more work out of his crew by breaking the rules and letting them go home as soon as they complete an established amount of work (84). This is a new stage in the development of his “I did it my way” principle: that “sometimes regulations hinder and need to be broken or ignored” (84). He develops this idea further, explaining, “We don’t necessarily have to play by the strict rules if we can find a way that works better, as long as it’s reasonable and doesn’t hurt anybody” (86).
The next summer (1971), the economy slumps, and the job that Carson has been promised is not available, nor can he find any other work. He applies his new principle, thinking “I’m going to make up my own rules on this one,” and goes to see the man who had interviewed him for Yale, Mr. Standart. Although the personnel office had originally told Carson that they had no jobs, Mr. Standart tells them to find a job for him, and they find him work in the mailroom. After several weeks, however, Carson decides that the pay is not sufficient for him to save enough money for the schoolyear, so he goes back to his supervisor at the road crew. There are no jobs, so Mr. Seufert invents one for Carson. The summer of 1972, Carson works on the line for Chrysler and is promoted due to his diligence.
Carson turns his attention to the financial strain he experienced at Yale, offset by two experiences that he interpreted as God’s constant care for him. First, in his sophomore year, Carson runs out of money and is unable even to afford bus fare to go to church. He needs other things as well, but he prays that God will provide the bus fare, and as he walks across campus, he finds a ten-dollar bill on the ground, which meets his needs. The second experience occurs during his junior year, when he is, again, completely broke. He tries walking across the campus looking for money, but this time there is not any to be found. This time he has a second concern—his psychology class has received notice that their original final exams were burned, and they must retake the test. He interrupts his search for money to take the test with his class of about one hundred-fifty. Finding the test to be incredibly difficult, students start leaving. Eventually, only Carson is left, as perplexed as his classmates by the test, but attempting to complete it. When the time is up, the professor comes in and reveals that the “burned tests” and impossible test are a hoax to find the most honest student in the class, and gives him a ten-dollar bill as a reward.
Chapter 8–9 Analysis
These two chapters begin and end with ten-dollar bills, the first being the funds that allow Carson to apply to one and only one college, the second, the reward, a find on the ground of the Yale campus when he is broke, and the third, a reward for his honesty on the hoax psychology test. Within this frame, the material is not completely chronological, and the chapter names do not completely align with content.
There are two main themes running through these chapters. The first is God’s care for Carson. God saves him both from his poor study habits and from desperate economic straits. The second is Carson’s “I did it my way” principle, which leads him to creative, if rule-breaking approaches to handling recalcitrant team members, as well as securing a job. At the same time, his diligence and honesty—in trying to complete the second psychology test, if not in trying to find the owner of the lost ten-dollar bill—stand out.
