Affect of an Abusive Childhood in "River of Names"

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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 ...

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