Loss of Innocence
Throughout the novel “ Lullabies for Little Criminals” by Heather O'Neill there are many experiences that Baby goes through that resulted in her loss of innocence at the young age of 13. From growing up around drugs to becoming a prostitute at a young age, Baby has had a life full of negative influences and experiences that have formed her into the person she is today. Firstly, when only having negative influences in one's life, it will mislead them into thinking it is the only route to take when they are not aware of other alternatives. Secondly, when one never has the opportunity to experience childhood, they will believe they deserve to be treated as an adult. Lastly, without proper drive and upbring the idea of pursuing
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Baby’s first experience that causes her to lose her innocence when she first is introduced to the world of drugs. Baby’s father is a heroin addict, and has been since her birth. Being around him and his friends doing drugs and finding drugs on the kitchen table made her feel tempted to try them. For only being 13 years old, Baby knew a lot about drugs, and said it was a matter of time until she started doing drugs herself. Baby admitted to knowing a lot about drugs by saying “ …for a kid, I knew a lot of things about what it felt like to use heroin.”(O’Neill, 10). This shows the amount of time that Baby has spent around drugs by living with a heroin addict and living in a community where doing drugs is normal. Since Baby lives in a big city like Montreal, there are certain places that are poor like in Toronto, there are the poor parts like Scarborough, where crime and drug rates are high, this is exactly what Baby goes through while living in this poor area in Montreal. In a marxist criticism point of view, it shows how drugs and alcohol abuse happen in parts of the city where people make less income and haven't had a goal in life and that's what Babys town is like, having people who never had an education and had people in their life who weren't good influences. Her friend Xavier lives in a different part of …show more content…
Baby first meets Alphonse when she is walking home from school one day, they become close and he asks her if she has ever smoked heroin. Baby didn't answer but thought it would be a good idea to start smoking heroin because she believed it would be a stepping stone into adulthood. Baby wanted to go buy some and try it out herself first so she goes and finds her dads friend who is a drug dealer. When Baby asks him how much it would cost to buy some he said “ Didn't you just get out of diapers?” (76) This shows Baby's loss of innocence because people in her town think that Baby is still a child and to still be treated like one even though she has been exposed to drugs and has had to grow up faster than other children her age. In a world where children are taught about the dangers of drugs, no 13 year old would ever think about asking someone if they could buy heroin. By experiencing life in a town where drugs are being sold and not being taught about the outcomes of doing them, Baby trusts that there is no harm in doing them. Baby has had to grow up beyond her years by being left alone at home and being kicked out of her house at a young age, that's why she believes that she should be treated like an adult because she never got to experience childhood so she believes it's right for people to treat her differently than other
Heather O’Neill, an inspiring author, wrote Lullabies for Little Criminals that guides readers through the prostitute life of Baby. It instantly became a bestseller worldwide in 2007. O’Neill is a Canadian novelist, poet, short story writer, screen writer, and an essayist. She was born in Montreal and was raised in a French family. Due to poverty in her lower class neighbourhood, young adults would not graduate high school or go to university. Young women would easily become prostitutes and live the rest of her life with an older adult male. However, O’Neill was lucky to attend McGill university, a renowned university that accepts higher class students.
In the third section of the novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, there are five major points that include the introduction of a new influential character that dynamically changes the protagonist, and examples of allusions, irony, and another major theme in the novel. The protagonist realizes that she is a prostitute and that she changed to an extent that she cannot stay further from her father anymore. Throughout the section, Baby’s character and personality develop as she slowly transitions into an adult. For example, she starts referring to readers as “little kids” randomly in the middle of a chapter when she is a little kid herself. In addition, Baby sings the song “Desperado,” a popular French song at the end of each chapter, which emphasizes
The prologue starts with the description about a girl who likes swimming, SpongeBob, Mexican food, writing poetry and getting her nails painted. To a normal person this sounds like a normal description for a little girl but normal is not the adjective to describe this girl because this little girl has been trafficked (or prostituted) by her 29 year old pimp on Craiglist to adult men. When I read this I automatically felt like someone took a pin and pricked to my chest because I remember being eleven and enjoying getting my nails painted and Mexican food. I was a normal, happy little girl but that same could not said for the girl mentioned above.
Claireece Precious Jones is currently experiencing the adolescent stage of her development and is transitioning into adulthood. Her experience as a teenage mother, growing up in poverty, and history of abuse all have implications for the development of her identity, cognitive functioning, and biological factors. We will focus on Erikson’s Psychosocial Stage for Adolescents to gage the evolution of Precious’s growth, while addressing the person in environmental theory that also attributes to the biopsychosocial context in which a young person develops.
In addition, we have a similar story in which the girl already fell into the mistake and doesn’t even know how to love a child. Shows the struggle of an innocent child having to nurture a
In today’s world there are millions of people who grow up in situations that make them powerless. Poverty, violence, and drugs surround children from birth and force them to join the cycle. In L.B. Tillit’s Unchained a young boy named TJ grows up in this environment. With both his mother and father struggling with addiction, he is often left alone on the streets to fend for himself. He turns to a local gang for protection and a sense of place in Jr. High, but is quickly taken out of the life he knows when his father overdoses and dies. TJ is sent to live in a foster home where he learns to care for others and meets a girl and falls in love with her. However, when his mother regains custody of him, TJ is forced back into the gang where he uses violence and drug dealing to stay alive. With help from his foster care manager he soon realizes that he can make it out of his life and return to his foster home and the girl he loves. A central theme of Unchained is that people have the power to make decisions to determine their future.
Lullabies for little criminals tells the story of an 11 year old girl and her interactions with drugs, alcohol, and prostitution. We are introduced to Baby, who narrates her story in the first-person. The narrator of the novel is however an unreliable narrator because she is so young and innocent and often does not really understands what is happening to her. Heather O’Neill emphasizes the dark, grittiness of the Montreal street life by choosing the narration of an innocent child. We see multiple experiences that O’Neill enhances through her use of narration that causes Baby’s loss of innocence, such as drugs and hurt at a young age, prostitution and love. We are forced to grow up fast when we grow up alone.
A child is known for having innocence, and bad experiences strip kids of it. In Sarah’s
This story makes the reader wonder, why must parents do this to their children, what kinds of motifs do they have for essentially ruining their child’s life. I believe
Children are common group of people who are generally mislabeled by society. In the short story “Charles’’ by Shirley Jackson and ‘’The Open Window” by Saki showed examples of the labeling of children. In “Charles” the concept of parents labeling their children as being pure and sincere was shown. As in “The Open Window” by Saki “used the notion that girls were the most truthful sex and gives her a name that suggests truthfulness to make her tale less suspect.”(Wilson 178). According to Welsh “Because the fantasy is so bizarre and inventive and totally unexpected from a fifteen-year-old girl, the reader is momentarily duped.”(03). This showed that even we as the readers were a victim of misleading labels of society.
After reading about one-third of “Lullabies for Little Criminals” by Heather O’Neil, I can definitely say that this book has shocked me. This book is about a 12-year old girl named, Baby, who lives with her father, Jules. Baby doesn't live an average teenage life. While reading the first couple pages of the book, I thought that I could really connect with Baby, but after reading a bit more about her lifestyle I can’t even image how Baby’s life would be. Baby’s lifestyle is exposed to many inappropriate things for her age. She knows a lot of drugs and more specially heroin. Her 26 year old father is a heroin addict, which is why they are not that financially stable. When I was 12, I didn't even know what heroine was or how it was used. I used
Thomas, Janet Y. Educating Drug Exposed Children: The Aftermath of the Crack Baby Crisis. Ed. Routledge. 2004. University of Phoenix. 3 April 2008 .
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.
My thesis statement is that children’s innocence enables them to cope in difficult situations. Children generally have a tendency to lighten the mood in sad situations because of their innocent nature. They turn even the saddest situations to mild, innocent situations. This is evident when Marjane says “these stories had given me new ideas for games”, (Satrapi, 55). By saying this she refers to her uncle’s stories of how he and other prisoners were tortured in prison. Stories of torture have never been easy to hear even for adults but Marjane so innocentl...
Abstract In this essay, I intend to explain how everyday lives challenge the construction of childhood as a time of innocence. In the main part of my assignment, I will explain the idea of innocence, which started with Romantic discourse of childhood and how it shaped our view of childhood. I will also look at two contradictory ideas of childhood innocence and guilt in Blake’s poems and extract from Mayhew’s book. Next, I will compare the images of innocence in TV adverts and Barnardo’s posters. After that, I will look at the representation of childhood innocence in sexuality and criminality, and the roles the age and the gender play in portraying children as innocent or guilty. I will include some cross-cultural and contemporary descriptions on the key topics. At the end of my assignment, I will summarize the main points of the arguments.