The autobiographical narrative, A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer recounts the harrowing abuse he endured at the hands of a figure that should represent security and comfort-his mother. Between the ages of 4-12 Pelzer suffered mental, physical and emotional torment from his alcoholic mother, ostracizing him from his family. A dwelling that should symbolize a sanctuary for an innocent child instead became an abusive containment facility. In documenting the raw images of his scarred past, Pelzer was able to fabricate a face to an otherwise silent evil. He also represented those who experienced similar situations of anguish and despair. His ordeal embodied the ability of the human spirit to endure to its breaking point, but still emerge intact. This anecdotal tale supports the notion that even those who have experienced the most malicious treatment can arise from the ashes, not only unscathed, but with an expression of confidence. It argues that those who have experienced situations of brutal child abuse can display resilience, and illustrate their newfound life not in a manner of violence or failure, that usually characterizes the outcome of childhood abuse cases, but instead grow from the experience and blossom into an adulthood of success and clarity. Throughout the explicit account of Pelzer’s tribulations, he implies the necessity of the audience to take some aggressive action against this immorality instead of remaining passive bystanders. To buttress his argument Pelzer uses numerous rhetorical strategies such as metaphor, juxtaposition, and pathos to emphasize the severity of his struggle. Pelzer also uses these literary devices to represent the hope and freedom he felt after his escape from the cruel bond... ... middle of paper ... ...zed happiness but implied Pelzer’s future liberation and contentment with his life after coming to terms with his past. It personified the advancement from an abused childhood, to an adulthood of clarity and acceptance, a transition that supports Pelzer’s argument of releasing the past. A major metaphorical device used in the account was a piece of driftwood being swept away by the ocean. It has an “odd, twisted shape. The wood is pitted, yet smoothed and bleached from its time in the sun” (p. 156). This driftwood symbolized Pelzer’s childhood as he was being controlled by larger external forces, but unlike the driftwood, he was able to escape these forces and display the possibility of gaining control over a situation that appears to be a maelstrom of hurt, confusion, and despair. “it was as if some immense power were sucking me into some giant undertow.”
Dave Pelzer’s book “A Child Called ‘It’” told his story of growing up in an abusive household. Pelzer’s family at first was just like any other, his parents loved each other and their children and they would do many fun activities together. As time progressed a change happened and his mother began to always punish Pelzer rather than any of the other children. The small punishments soon began to grow and become more and more serious. Soon, Dave’s father and siblings could not help him out of fear that their mother and wife would turn on them. Dave was banished to the garage where he would have to sit at the bottom of the stairs waiting until his mother called him to do his chores. Usually Pelzer would be starved for very long periods of time
'You are a nobody! An It!?(Pelzer 140). These were the raw, disheartened remarks that came from the disgusting coldhearted mother's mouth. These painful hurting remarks at her son was how the book got its title and that's what interested me in reading this book. A Child Called 'It', by Dave Pelzer, is a life-changing story about, a young boy who is starved, beat, and tortured by his mother and her cruel games, yet he manages to turn his life around when he grows up. This young boy uses his faith, self-discipline, and will power to overrule his mother's destruction and life damaging obstacles.
The author is attempting to teach the readers that no one should treat people this badly. David is an innocent child and does not deserve his bad childhood. David does not even do anything wrong, and his mother continued to treat him like an object. Pelzer succeeded in telling how cruel the mother is. He also teaches that people can be cruel to each other, and that it is important to teach people that kindness can go a long way. The whole book discusses his childhood. Pelzer wrote some sequels to tell the rest of his child life for the interested readers.
Besides telling her child that she hated him and wished him dead Dave’s mother put him through tremendous physical pain and abuse. From a young child till the fifth grade Dave Pelzer had been made to sleep away from the family in the basement in a small army cot. He was starved for days and days on end. His mother longed for any time to severely beat him, it made her day, she would think of morbid things all day to do to him when he got home from school. Among many other things, Dave Pelzer was; stabbed, made to drink ammonia, bleach, and dishwashing detergent, made to sit in a bathroom for hours with many chemicals creating a small gas chamber, put in freezing cold water for hours with just his nose sticking out of the tub, burnt on an open fire on the stove, and made to eat his little brother’s dirty diaper. These were only some of the torturous things his mother could think of to do to her little boy.
In the story, A Child Called It, by Dave Pelzer narrates his traumatic childhood abuse through the lenses of a mere ten year old child.The book accounts of terrifying, disturbing tortures inflicted on a young boy who is starved, stabbed, smashed face first into mirrors, forced to eat crap from his brother’s diaper, forced to drink ammonia/chlorine, and burned over a stove by an alcoholic, insane mother. Dave is the oldest of his brothers and the only one to receive abuse from his mother.The abuse started as Dave was four years old with minimum punishment and quickly escalated to life threatening punishments as the years passed. The punishments grew to physical and emotional abuse and neglect from his mother. The neglect escalates to rarely
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.
The results of trauma can be physical, emotional, cognitive, social, economic, and spiritual. The impact of trauma is layered in the neurological and endocrine system, affecting all parts of the body and mind. Life force energy can become blocked. There might be physical injury as well as chronic pain syndromes or immune problems that occur from long term stress. Emotions or unmet needs can become stuck, leaving the person trapped in patterns of thought, emotion, or behavior. Trauma also makes individuals more vulnerable to further stressors.
In American society today we fail to address several issues that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, child abuse is one of the major issues that our country is plagued with, yet we neglect to bring this to the attention of the entire nation. It is often over looked because everyone has a different view of what exactly defines child abuse. The International Child Abuse Network (ICAN) uses four basis categories to docunment the child abuse cases. They are: emotional abuse, neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. I will be describing the first three.
The article, The Long- Term Impact of Emotional Abuse in Childhood: Identifying Mediating and Moderating Processes by Margaret O’Doughterty Wright, addresses the impacts of emotional abuse in childhood and its long-term consequences. This type of abuse has not received much attention in comparison to other forms of mistreatment such as physical or sexual abuse (Wright, 2007). Now that we are taking into account the severity of this form of maltreatment, we recognize that emotional abuse plays a significant role and is involved in all other types of neglect as well (Wright, 2007). Since it has been difficult to define exactly what emotional abuse entails, determining what constitutes a case of maltreatment has
A Child Called "It" explores the traumatic story of child abuse and how the choices made by one person affects another’s sense of belonging. The story is only from one point of view as it’s a biography, written by the man who experienced trauma at such a tender age. David Pelzer, as a child, dealt with rejection daily and not only from his mother but classmates, teachers and ultimately his biggest enemy, himself.
In the essay "Overcoming Abuse - My Story", Shawna Platt talks about her childhood with her alcoholic parents and her struggles. She has experienced neglect, domestic, emotional and sexual abuse. She also talks about how she overcame all the abuse, the way the abuse effected her mental health, and how she broke the cycle with her children.
...the narrator and all people a way of finding meaning in their pains and joys. The two brothers again can live in brotherhood and harmony.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are the extremely traumatic events that take place in an individual’s childhood that negatively affect their future attempts to succeed in life. ACEs include enduring physical and verbal abuse, living in dysfunction and over exposure to violent and criminal behavior. It was determined that children who are in the child welfare system are more likely to suffer ACEs and develop physical and mental health issues as well as engage in risky behavior (Brown & Shillington, 2017); children who suffer ACEs also have lower self-efficacy than other children. In all of the research prior to this study, much of the focus was on the psychological and behavioral outcomes of ACEs and what children were more susceptible to them. The problem that the researchers in this study have identified is that in no prior research has anyone
Childhood trauma and events are an important topic. The impact of childhood trauma and events can be seen in the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. On page 151 it states “Nwoye struggled to free himself from the choking grip, answer me roared Okonkwo, before I kill you.” Okonkwo grabbed Nwoye, his son by the neck because Nwoye decided to convert into Christianity along with the white mens. He wanted to convert to another religion because he didn’t like his father and what their way of teaching was. Okonkwo and Nwoye were raised in the Igbo culture. He didn't like that they killed for revenge. While Okonkwo is harsh because of his culture, Nwoye wants to be different than his father. This shows that his father had an impact on how he
Early childhood trauma generally refers to the traumatic experiences that overwhelm a child’s ability to cope with what they have experienced. Although children aged 0-6 years can be exposed to trauma as a result of natural disaster, accidents, or war, for the purposes of this paper we will examine only those early childhood traumas, resulting from intentional violence such as, physical, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, and witnessing domestic violence, also known as developmental trauma. Since early life experiences program the brain and body for the environment it encounters, children who experience psychological trauma in early childhood, are more likely to develop a substance addiction in adolescence, with 46% of males at higher