In “Maggie: A Girl of the streets”, Stephen Crane paints a disturbing image of the Bowery district in New York City late in the nineteenth century. It is the slums of New York and it provides little opportunity and a propensity for failure. This hopeless environment plays a large role in shaping the lives of the children who grow up there. To capture a clear picture of how boys develop in the Bowery district, Crane opens with them fighting in the alley saying “The little champion of Rum Alley stumbled precipitately down the other side. His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat was gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood was dripping from a cut in his head. His wan features wore a look of a tiny, insane demon.” This is an example of a boy raised in an environment where dreams are unattainable and one’s only hope is survival. After analyzing “Maggie a girl of the streets”, I came to conclude that the environment we grow up in often times proves more resilient than the will of the person who comes from it. Some people are not given a fair chanc...
“She wakes to the sound of breathing. The smaller children lie tangled beside her, their chests rising and falling under winter coats and wool blankets. A few feet away, their mother and father sleep near the mop bucket they use as a toilet. Two other children share a mattress by the rotting wall where the mice live, opposite the baby, whose crib is warmed by a hair dryer perched on a milk crate.” (Elliot, pg.1) Dasini, an 11 year old child, lives a arduous life with her family in the projects outside New York City. The article, Invisible Child, written by Andrea Elliott, successfully portrays the difficulties Dasini and her family endure on a daily basis.
from the country’s interior. The adolescents came to compete for work in the recently industrialized world. In New York the large influx of youths produced a new adolescent subculture that promoted deviant and licentious behavior throughout the city. The book
...areness of unjustifiable conditions that are imposed on societies youngest and most powerless members. Intermingled with his convictions of the necessity for equality and justice are portraits of children who display a most astounding amount of hope and courage. It is an essential read for all who have plans to enter the field of education. Those of us who aspire to shape the minds of the future need to be aware that all children possess the ability to love and prosper despite whatever environment they have emerged from. It is our duty to provide all children, without regard to race or economic status, with the tools and opportunities they require in order to flourish and lead the satisfying lives that they so greatly desire and deserve.
The tenement was the biggest hindrance to achieving the American myth of rags to riches. It becomes impossible for one to rise up in the social structure when it can be considered a miracle to live passed the age of five. Children under the age of five living in tenements had a death rate of 139.83 compared to the city’s overall death rate of 26.67. Even if one did live past the age of five it was highly probable he’d become a criminal, since virtually all of them originate from the tenements. They are forced to steal and murder, they’ll do anything to survive, Riis appropriately calls it the “survival of the unfittest”. (Pg.
Inner-city life is filled with glimmers of hope. The children had hopes of leaving the dreadful streets of the ghetto and moving into an innovative and improved place. There are times when Lafayette states, ...
In John Connolly’s novel, The Book of Lost Things, he writes, “for in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be”. Does one’s childhood truly have an effect on the person one someday becomes? In Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle and Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, this question is tackled through the recounting of Jeannette and Amir’s childhoods from the perspectives of their older, more developed selves. In the novels, an emphasis is placed on the dynamics of the relationships Jeannette and Amir have with their fathers while growing up, and the effects that these relations have on the people they each become. The environment to which they are both exposed as children is also described, and proves to have an influence on the characteristics of Jeannette and Amir’s adult personalities. Finally, through the journeys of other people in Jeannette and Amir’s lives, it is demonstrated that the sustainment of traumatic experiences as a child also has a large influence on the development of one’s character while become an adult. Therefore, through the analysis of the effects of these factors on various characters’ development, it is proven that the experiences and realities that one endures as a child ultimately shape one’s identity in the future.
This group of men were poor men, unemployed, uneducated. These men lived through failure after failure and therefore, they look to the street corner as “a sanctuary for those who can no longer endure the experience or prospect of failure” (Liebow p.139). Their names were Tally, another Sea Cat, and Leroy. He observed the friendship between these corner men, and their involvement amongst other activities. Liewbow accompanied them to bars and parties, he appeared in court with them, and visited them in jail. Tally’s Corner provided a look at the connection and relationship of streetcorner men to their whole lives. Their jobs, family, affairs, friends and networks throughout the low income ghetto neighborhood surrounding Tally’s Corner, Washington D.C.
Are adults overprotective of their children? To what point do we protect children? Where should the line be drawn? Along with those questions is how easily children can be influenced by these same adults. Two poets, Richard Wilbur and Billy Collins, express the ideas of how easily children can be manipulated and how sometimes adults think they are protecting their innocent children, when in reality they are not. Wilbur and Collins express these ideas in their poems through numerous literary devices. The literary devices used by Wilbur and Collins expose different meanings and two extremely different end results. Among the various literary devices used, Wilbur uses imagery, a simple rhyme scheme and meter, juxtaposition of the rational and irrational, and a humorous tone to represent the narrator’s attempt to “domesticate” irrational fears. Conversely Collins uses symbols, historical interpretations, imagery, diction and other literary devices to depict the history teacher’s effort to shield his students from reality. In the poems, “A Barred Owl,” by Richard Wilbur, and “The History Teacher,” by Billy Collins, both poets convey how adults protect and calm children from their biggest, darkest fears and curiosities.
Although the author, Betty Smith, denied ever writing a novel with socially political motives, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn abounds with references to class issues. Nearly every scene, every character illustrates or deals with the problem of poverty in early twentieth-century America. For the Nolan’s, being poor means they must always think about being poor – how they will buy the next load of coal, where their food will come from, their insurance, rent, medicine, all the necessities of raising a family. The novel also shows that poverty is not just the absence of food or comfort, it is the direct cause for Uncle Flittman to leave, Johnny’s utter nothingness and Francie’s inability to go to a high school. Every action in the novel is based around a limited amount of resources, as not only the Nolan’s but also the entire community suffers. Exploitation abounds, whether in the overpriced sale of candy, child labour in metal collection, dishonest grocers and butchers and employers with impunity to set their own rules. Katie does her best with the household money, and we find that for the poor sometimes a luxury isn’t in getting something, but in being able to waste it.
Antwone Fisher was an individual that endured so many things. He faced a lot of challenges that may have seemed impossible to recover from. This story was an example of the many things that some children may experience. Antwone was not raised in an upper crust home. He did not grow up in a home in which his mother and father was present. Instead of having positive role models, he had to live with individuals that were abusive to him. When observing Antwone’s personality, one may refer to two different theorists such as Bandura and Rogers.
One in three kids in America experience homelessness. In the short story “Thank You Ma’am” by Langston Hughes there is a boy who tries to steal a woman's purse. The boy in this story is named Roger, and he is the dynamic character in the story. There are many reasons why Roger a dynamic character in this short story. Roger is a dynamic character because he changes throughout the story, first, he is a boy who has no home and anybody to go to so he steals things in order to survive. It is not until the end of this passage where it is shown that he has learned from Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones and he has changed dramatically.
Throughout the Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century, many children were forced to work against their own will, to support the growing need for labor in the demanding economy. William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper,” meticulously portrays the mindsets of two individuals obligated to carry out these societal expectations of working at a very young age. However, contrary to societies opinion on harmful child labor, Blake uses irony and sarcasm to convey his critical allegation of the wrongdoings of the church and society on their lack of effort to intervene and put an end to the detrimental job of adolescent chimney sweeping. By creating this ironic atmosphere, Blake establishes a poem that is full of despair and suffering but is sugar-coated and disguised with happiness and content provided by the church and society of London.
Perhaps, the film Dangerous Minds puts too much emphasis on the character of Louanne as a savior for the children, and sensationalizes the idea of “gang life.” However, it nevertheless manages to draw attention to important social factors that can influence the lives of children growing up in poverty, and how these factors can effect who we become. I see the film as an avenue to begin breeching mainstream views that cloud the issue of poverty in the United States, to start opening up paths for discussion, and consideration for the steps that might lead to social
“Though Marsalls mother worried about his long commute to Whitney Young, it was the walk though his own neighborhood that frightened her the most. One day, during his junior year, four thugs jumped him at 115th and Halsted Streets as he was getting off the bus on his way home from school.”(Turner, Dawn. "Poets Tell Story of Chicago School Children Killed." Chicago Tribune. N.p., 26 Oct. 2009. Web. 14 May 2014.)
In the poem, The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake (1789), the poet attempts to shine a light on the social injustice inflicted upon children by appealing to the reader’s conscience in order to free them from their nightmare existence. He uses a child’s voice as the vehicle to deliver his message in order to draw attention to the injustice of forced child labor. The speaker is a young boy whose mother has passed away. He has no time to properly grieve because his father has sold him into a life of filth and despair. The child weeps not only for the loss of his mother and his father’s betrayal, but also for the loss of his childhood and innocence. Blake cleverly uses sound, imagery, irony, and symbolism in an attempt to provoke outrage over the inhumane treatment and exploitation inflicted upon young children by forcing them into the chimneys.