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Effects of childhood trauma essay
Gender role in literature
The psychosocial effects of trauma on children
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Childhood is the most important chapter in one’s life. Each person has different childhood experiences, some good and some bad. Many times a person’s childhood determines who they are, how they relate to others and how they live their life. One’s morals and virtues begin developing throughout their childhood, which is why it is important to have a proper childhood experience. Abuse, humiliation or insult throughout one’s childhood can scar an individual for life. Dorothy Allison’s “River of Names” is a short fictional story about a girl who tells her dreadful childhood stories as humor in an attempt to forget about her past. In Allison’s “River of Names,” Allison shows us how the narrator is defeated by her childhood and therefore cannot have a normal lifestyle.
Allison’s narrator suffered greatly throughout her childhood. Seeing her cousin commit suicide and die before her eyes is not easy for an eight-year-old, or for anyone for that matter. The narrator never had a decent relationship with males. Rape, violence and abuse by the male figures in her childhood led the narrator to ...
In society, one’s culture and traditions are what makes a person’s character and personality. In most families, there are traditions that are passed down like folktales. Folktales are stories passed down person by person and eventually change slightly over time. However, the focal message of folktales always typically stick. Folktales teach valuable life lessons while entertaining the reader or in some cases the three granddaughters as seen in “Water Names.” The short story “Water Names” written by Lan Samantha Chang is a story of a Chinese folktale told by a grandmother narrating the tale to her three granddaughters. The folktale centers the symbol of water and the meaning manifests as the three young girls learn what it can do. The grandmother
Michael Patrick MacDonald lived a frightening life. To turn the book over and read the back cover, one might picture a decidedly idyllic existence. At times frightening, at times splendid, but always full of love. But to open this book is to open the door to Southie's ugly truth, to MacDonald's ugly truth, to take it in for all it's worth, to draw our own conclusions. One boy's hell is another boy's playground. Ma MacDonald is a palm tree in a hurricane, bending and swaying in the violent winds of Southie's interior, even as things are flying at her head, she crouches down to protect her children, to keep them out of harms way. We grew up watching Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow and Peanuts. Michael Patrick MacDonald grew up watching violence, sadness and death.
From a very young age, Bone was sexually abused by her step-father, Glen Waddell. Like Bone, Dorothy Allison also suffered abuse from her step-father, starting at the young age of five years-old. During the time of the novel, and until recent years, it was unthinkable to speak of any sort of abuse outside the household. Throughout history, children have been victims of abuse by their parents or other adults, and fo...
At the age of ten, most children are dependent on their parents for everything in their lives needing a great deal of attention and care. However, Ellen, the main character and protagonist of the novel Ellen Foster, exemplifies a substantial amount of independence and mature, rational thought as a ten-year-old girl. The recent death of her mother sends her on a quest for the ideal family, or anywhere her father, who had shown apathy to both she and her fragile mother, was not. Kaye Gibbons’ use of simple diction, unmarked dialogue, and a unique story structure in her first novel, Ellen Foster, allows the reader to explore the emotions and thoughts of this heroic, ten-year-old girl modeled after Gibbons’ own experiences as a young girl.
She is brutally honest about her background and tragedies she endures, to show others that it is acceptable to have a voice in this world. In a raw moment on her 16th birthday, she speaks up to her abusive stepfather, after he spanks her in front of her friends, saying, “You can’t break me…and you’re never going to touch me again” (Allison 68). In this moment Allison realizes that she is the girl who “stood up to the monster” (68). At the same time, she realizes that she is capable of reclaiming herself and her life from the grasps of this monster that is her stepfather (Allison 69). At one point, she lets the tragedies in her life take over and reinvent who she is, making her nothing more than a victim that society has assigned a stereotype to, she writes, “I did not want to wear that coat, to be told what it meant, to be told how it had changed the flesh beneath it, to let myself be made over into my rapist’s creation” (Allison 70-71). Ultimately, Dorothy Allison defines herself and her voice through the progression of her
In the short story “River of Names” by Dorothy Allison, violence replaces education. The family in the story, which represents uneducated and poor lower class citizens, continues through a cycle of death and abuse throughout generations. Without proper education, improper actions and thoughts are hard to overcome. For example, the narrator’s sister, Billie, promised herself that she “wasn’t going to be like that” (Allison 170). The narrator and Billie swore they would break away from the pattern of violence within their family; however, their natural instincts leaned toward violent actions. Billie expressed violence towards her child’s cries while the narrator expressed her violence towards Jesse. The narrator of this story had more experience with educated people and therefore had more control over her actions by distinguishing right from wrong. Education aids in the use of moral sense. Although some lower class citizens have access to education, it is not the same quality education the upper class receives. In the short story “The Stolen Party,” Liliana Heker creates a scene of comparison between the education of different classes. Rosaura, the maid’s daughter, and Luciana, the daughter of the high class employer, worked on their homework together every day after school. Rosaura thought she was “a friend of Luciana” because of this; however, Luciana’s friends looked down upon Rosaura because she did not attend the same school as Luciana (150). The lower class faces discrimination due to the elite education of the upper class. The refinement and delicacy of higher class education provides them with knowledge of how to prepare their future generations for greatness instead of violence or
Joe and Bazil 's status as the immediate family members to a sexual assault survivor allows readers to see how sexual assault can impact an entire family unit; a frequent situation that many people find themselves in, but don 't know how to sensibly handle emotionally. Through Joe 's perspective as a child in this novel, Erdrich guides her audience into understanding how complex of a societal issue sexual assault is by displaying how far reaching its effects are on the victim, family, and community of a
In Dave Pelzer's award winning autobiography, “The Child Called It”, he recounts the horrors of his childhood where he was abused by his alcoholic mother from the ages of four through twelve. His mother did unspeakable and heinous things to him. She slapped him, she starved him, she beat him, and she even stabbed him. Pelzer’s father, nor his brothers, did not try to intervene and stop Catherine from abusing Dave.
‘Some idea of a child or childhood motivates writers and determines both the form and content of what they write.’ -- Hunt The above statement is incomplete, as Hunt not only states that the writer has an idea of a child but in the concluding part, he states that the reader also has their own assumptions and perceptions of a child and childhood. Therefore, in order to consider Hunt’s statement, this essay will look at the different ideologies surrounding the concept of a child and childhood, the form and content in which writers inform the reader about their ideas of childhood concluding with what the selected set books state about childhood in particular gender. The set books used are Voices In The Park by Browne, Mortal Engines by Reeve and Little Women by Alcott to illustrate different formats, authorial craft and concepts about childhood. For clarity, the page numbers used in Voices In The Park are ordinal (1-30) starting at Voice 1.
“The Pain Tree” written by Olive Senior tells the story of a woman who comes back home after many years and begins to think about her childhood in a new light, which changes much of what she thought she knew of her family and childhood. The story shows the main character, Lorraine, revisiting the memories of her family and the woman who had taken care of her as a child, Larissa. Children mainly focus on the happy memories which may be tied to more important topics that they do not understand until they are older. Most children do not pick up on many of the complicated things happening around them. Lorraine can now see the bigger picture of her relationship with Larissa and how large the divides were between Lorraine’s family and Larissa’s
In “ A Rose for Emily”, William Faulkner tells the complex tale of a woman who is battered by time and unable to move through life after the loss of each significant male figure in her life. Unlike Disney Stories, there is no prince charming to rescue fallen princess, and her assumed misery becomes the subject of everyone in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi. As the townspeople gossip about her and develop various scenarios to account for her behaviors and the unknown details of her life, Emily Grierson serves as a scapegoat for the lower classes to validate their lives. In telling this story, Faulkner decides to take an unusual approach; he utilizes a narrator to convey the details of a first-person tale, by examining chronology, the role of the narrator and the interpretations of “A Rose for Emily”, it can be seen that this story is impossible to tell without a narrator.
Suffering from the death of a close friend, the boy tries to ignore his feelings and jokes on his sister. His friend was a mental patient who threw himself off a building. Being really young and unable to cope with this tragedy, the boy jokes to his sister about the bridge collapsing. "The mention of the suicide and of the bridge collapsing set a depressing tone for the rest of the story" (Baker 170). Arguments about Raisinettes force the father to settle it by saying, "you will both spoil your lunch." As their day continues, their arguments become more serious and present concern for the father who is trying to understand his children better. In complete agreement with Justin Oeltzes’ paper, "A Sad Story," I also feel that this dark foreshadowing of time to come is an indication of the author’s direct intention to write a sad story.
The narrator of this short story is Adelaine, a young native girl who is being molested by her Uncle Josh for money and gifts. She is trapped in a cycle of abuse, her uncle was molested by the priest in residential school and now her uncle molests her. She has a flashback to when she was a kid watching Sesame Street and she says “Uncle Josh undoes his pants” (190) and that when “it’s over he’ll have treats for me” (190). She says that she is not like her sister who “runs to Mommy about everything” (190). She has no way out of the cyle, she is trapped in
Innocence is something always expected to be lost sooner or later in life, an inevitable event that comes of growing up and realizing the world for what it truly is. Alice Walker’s “The Flowers” portrays an event in which a ten year old girl’s loss of innocence after unveiling a relatively shocking towards the end of the story. Set in post-Civil War America, the literary piece holds very particular fragments of imagery and symbolism that describe the ultimate maturing of Myop, the young female protagonist of the story. In “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, the literary elements of imagery, symbolism, and setting “The Flowers” help to set up a reasonably surprising unveiling of the gruesome ending, as well as to convey the theme of how innocence disappears as a result of facing the harsh reality of this world.
Anne was not a very good student. She did not like school at all. She could not focus on her studies and her disobedience towards her teachers made them talk to her parents to seek for a counselor. But, her parents did not take the teacher’s advice. Anne’s parents sent her to a boarding school called Rogers Hall in Lowell, Massachusetts. At that time, she started writing poetry and acting. Her beauty charmed many men towards her. At the age o...