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A Child Called “It” The book I read was “A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer. This book was an autobiography about a childhood that was full of misery. Dave, the main character, was a little boy and his mother abused him horribly. In the book, he explains what had happened to him. Dave always thought about how if he did not do the dishes no breakfast. Breakfast was important to him, because he did not get much food. The night before he did not have dinner so he was starving by this point. The breakfast he was usually given was his brothers left over cereal. The safe place for Dave was school, but he always had to lie about the black eyes and fat lips or his mother would hurt him the worst that night. Dave says, “it was a kind of lifestyle that grew …show more content…
Dave's punishments began to evolve. It started with having to sit in a corner of the bedroom, and progressed to the "mirror treatment," in which she would smash his face against the mirror and force him to say he was a bad boy. One Christmas, he only received a couple of gifts, and none from his immediate family. His mother told his brothers that Santa only brings gifts to good children.Things went a step farther when she turned on the stove and held his arms in the flame, telling him, "You've made my life a living hell, now it's time I showed you what hell is like!” (Pelzer 28). When his brothers and father went to the super slide, however, Dave was not allowed to go because at this point he was not a family member. His mother called him inside and smeared one of his infant brother Russell's soiled diapers all over his face, for allegedly making too much noise outside. She insisted that he eat it, but he used one of his tactics, slowing her down until Russell starts to cry and the rest of the family coming back distracted her. Abusing with words, starvation, hitting, breaking, burning, and beating went on and on. He was
'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.
Dave's mother would make him sleep in the garage in an old army cot. Sometimes it would get really freezing down there and he didn’t even have anything to cover him. Dad would occasionally sneak him scraps of food, but if he didn’t he would have to starve.
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.
When Dave was younger him and his brothers, Ronald and Stan were happy in a normal family with a loving mom and dad, but as years passed things started to change. Dave’s parents became alcoholics. His father never came home and his mother had lost her brightness and love of life, resorting to alcohol to get through the day. She became miserable to live with. Although she became mean to the kids she focused her anger on Dave. At first she would pit his brothers against him or make him do many chores, but soon her meanness turned to hatred towards Dave.
ending where he decides to leave his house when everyone is asleep. Dave is also mad how everyone is treating him, and how all he ever gets do is work all the time and has never been given anything in his life. Dave is even mad at his family, especially his mother for ratting him out. He did not want to sell the gun and give the money to Mr. Hawkins as his father instructed him to do. He wanted to keep the gun because he wanted to ow...
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.
Later, there is a trial to determine whether or not to permanently remove him from his mother's custody. David becomes confused about whether he may actually deserve the treatment from his mother. Ms. Gold, the social services worker, keep assuring him that it had nothing to do with him, and that his mother is the one who is sick. After the trial, he is put under the care of a woman in a mentally challenged home. He does not fit in with other kids because he had being away from normal household for so long and was not recalled to the living and behaviour of a normal household.
In Hello, Monster, when Dave was first trapped he was hopeful of escaping the sewers and returning back to his normal life. However as night fell, the mind could not handle being
He is showing that in the social demand in the time that his story happens, whites are superior to blacks. Dave is a slave to history. He trusts he will undoubtedly be much the same as whatever is left of his family. He detects that he will constantly be a slave to the whites. He needs respect and sees getting a weapon as out when in this manner it just impacts him to seem like a tyke, which is the inverse he was attempting to do.
‘But you killed her!’ All the crowd was laughing now.” (Wright) If the crowd had viewed Dave as an adult, the atmosphere might have been less lighthearted, and would have been treated as a much more serious offense. This fact bothered Dave especially as later that day while in bed he was thinking of the incident, “Something hot seemed to turn over inside him each time he remembered how they had laughed.”
Catherine Roerva Pelzer, Dave’s mom, is portrayed as Mom, Mother, and the Bitch. Dave tells us about Mom right after his account of “The Rescue.” He tells us of “The Good Times” when Mom and Father were happy, when they were all a normal family. Mom was a devoted nurturer, housewife and teacher. She wore dresses, her face was always made up, and she was always cooking scrumptious meals for the family. Mom would take outings with her sons whenever father wasn’t around, and vacations with the whole family, the most memorable being their trips to the Russian River. Mom was sweet and loving; she acknowledged achievements, showed pride and physical as well as emotional affection around her son.
Dave tried changing but he didn’t allow himself enough time to truly become a man. He believed that he can be a man overnight but in reality it takes a long time to become one. Many men have different paces in becoming a man but eventually all of them will become one when it’s meant to be. The way Dave did to become a man quickly wasn’t in his best interest because luckily he killed a mule and not a person. He assumed that he’s almost eighteen, he should be treated like a man
His parents serve as a microcosm of society in the way that they control every aspect of his life. They make him work in the fields, they keep his earnings, and they must always know his whereabouts. In the same way that his parents restrict him, society decided that because of his race he was destined to live a life of laboring in the fields. Dave had the ability to get an education, but the racial biases of the 1900’s made it unlikely that he would be respected even with schooling. The gun he buys is his way of forcing people to respect him.
Dave is a confused and tough six-foot-two, fifteen-stone bouncer with a shaved head who does not know what to do with his life. Additionally, he is an immature, who...
The story begins with Dave telling the reader a little about himself and his old job as a bouncer at a nightclub. He appears to be your average 40-year-old; he talks about providing for his family, playing with his kids, drinking with his buddies, and watching Fraiser. However, throughout the story, the reader gets a more and more in depth look into the mind of Dave.