Beautiful Boy

The art piece created by Claude Vignon , “David with the Head of Goliath” has three important elements that are vital towards the piece in order to portray a message of power and authority. Which are the focal point, proportions, and the contrast of this particular piece. The artwork is oil on canvas that was made around in 1593-1670. The subject matter of the artwork is depicting the moment of pride David had with the head of the giant Goliath being laid next to his small body. The portrait of David is seen on the viewers middle left side, while the head of Goliath is in the middle right side next to David’s. David is seen wearing clothes that appear to be a size to big on him, to the point where the shirt is slipping from his shoulder (exposing his left shoulder). The clothes themselves are interpreted as royal clothing, having a big headpiece located in the top half of the painting. With the exposed shoulder being leaned forward on, in his left hand David holds a silver sword that is seen to to take

The relationship between the two fathers and the two sons is a very important theme in this book. Because of their different backgrounds, Reb Saunders and David Malters approached raising a child from two totally different perspectives.

David Sheff’s purpose is to illustrate what it is like to live the life of a parent who is not only taking care of is addicted son but who has to learn to take care of himself and the rest of his

Nic Sheff was 18 and collage bound when he discovered crystal meth. At first his father had no idea. Then came a call from his school, the late nights, the lying, the ghoulish pallor and the wasting away. David’s life became an eternity of waiting, for the phone to ring, the door to open, or

(2.) Nic Sheff is a chronic slipper when it comes to staying sober. He has gone in and out of rehabs faster than you would think possible. Finding excuses to use drugs again and eventually hit rock bottom seem to be his only skills in life. After what seemed to be an infinite struggle with himself, Nic finally pulls through and stays sober. His book shows these hardships and how he deals with them on the road to recovery. Some of his decisions are well thought-out, and others, not so much. He keeps the story alive by believing in a higher power, his passion for living and his love of others. While sober, he continues to be painfully aware of how much he has hurt others by using, especially his mom. "Sometimes I think she would just

David paints in the neoclassical style. Neoclassicism was an era in art where artists were inspired by Greek and Roman style. Socrates was of course Greek, so the subject matter in itself can represent the painting era. Another important aspect which is surely presented in this particular painting is the focus on the thought processes rather than sensuality of art. Subject matter was more thought provoking, dark and morally driven than it was an appeal to emotion during this era. Socrates’s calmness while dying represents that clearly. His almost divine like quality also alludes to that.

One example, is when he took on the enabler role of a joiner when Nic asked if we wanted to smoke a joint with him. A part of David wanted to have that connection with his rebelling son again so they smoked together, but as soon as it was over the guilt started to set in. Having no other way to connect to his son leads David to break his values, because of his craving to understand him. Deterioration of personal value system is one of the major symptoms co-dependents experience. They start to lie for the addict and start comprising their beliefs. When a co-dependent starts covering for the addict, they really start to lose who they are and they start taking on the identity of the addict. When co-dependents start to lose themselves it is really hard for them to separate themselves from the addict. This leads to problems of control between the addict and the co-dependent. David obviously felt he knew what was best for his son. However, Nic was far gone and didn’t realize the pain he was putting his family through. For a co-dependent it is nearly impossible for them to think of their own health and emotions. This is a part of the book that made me feel sorry for David, because his life was revolving around Nic so much that he was tormented by the thought of letting his son

Sophie allows for doubt to pierce its way into David’s life for the first time. At the start of the novel, when David first meets Sophie, he gets an insight into a deviant’s life. She has proven to be the first blow to efficiently impact David’s thoughts and make him question the authenticity of his society’s belief system. “It is hind-sight that enables me to fix that as the day when my first small doubts started to germinate.”

his father and dead mother. David's father has an idealized vision of his son as

At the age of 5 years old, not only did he began to take showers with his father, but when they went to the beach club, his mother bathed him in the shower in the presence of other naked women. By the age of 6 years old, David noticed the power men had over women, “when a male entered the women’s side of the bathhouse, all the women shrieked”. (Gale Biography). At the age of 7 and 8 years old, he experienced a series of head accidents. First, he was hit by a car and suffered head injuries. A few months later he ran into a wall and again suffered head injuries. Then he was hit in the head with a pipe and received a four inch gash in the forehead. Believing his natural mother died while giving birth to him was the source of intense guilt, and anger inside David. His size and appearance did not help matters. He was larger than most kids his age and not particularly attractive, which he was teased by his classmates. His parents were not social people, and David followed in that path, developing a reputation for being a loner. At the age of 14 years old David became very depressed after his adoptive mother Pearl, died from breast cancer. He viewed his mother’s death as a monster plot designed to destroy him. (Gale Biography). He began to fail in school and began an infatuation with petty larceny and pyromania. He sets fires,

The painting shows multiple repetitions, the man looking at his own reflection in the water with his heading cracked open shows remorse and sorrow. On the other side of the painting there is the same outline of the man, but in the shape of a hand with an egg that is cracked open with a flower sprouting out representing new life and clarity. There is an interesting recurrence of the sky in the background on the left side which has a reflection on the water of similar colors. On the right side there are also similarities of the blueish gray sky and below it has the blueish gray hand. Both the man and the hand have similar shadows to the right of them. Repetition is seen throughout the painting and has significant meanings behind each one. After

David questions himself about many of the choices that he made in Nic’s life. Some of them good and some of them I had a difficult time understanding. For instance was it really a good idea for his mother to move so far away from her child and then force him to travel back and forth between his home with his father to his mother’s house in Los Angeles, where he basically living his life on his on.. As a young child was this too much for Nic to handle let alone truly understand. Was it a good idea for David to take Nic to see Nirvana which was a rock band where the lead singer was addicted to heroin and later overdosed and died, whose death really affected Nic. Or was it a good thing for David to share with Nic at such a young age about his abuse of drugs and alcohol when he was in high school and college. Throughout this book David second guesses himself a lot. I feel that one of the most controversy things in the book was when they were visiting family and David and Nic went out for a walk and he was talking to his son about his drug use and Nic asks him if he wants to smoke some weed and David does. Now some of David’s actions can be considered confusing because maybe Nic was thinking that you did drugs when you were in high school and college and look you turned out alright or the fact that he thinks it is ok to do drugs because my dad actually smoked some weed with me.

Many people all around the world face challenges and obstacles every day in their daily lives. One man in particular is Nic Sheff; a man who was a drug addict and wrote an autobiography called

The best part in the chapters is when they arrived in Bellingham. It was about the time when things were about to change. It was nice because it described how John felt towards making new friends and adjusting to a new life.

As I concluded this novel the first thing that came to mind was "wow" and then "the fuck?". David Lurie represents to me all that is wrong with the world and how it effects others around him. See I wanted David to have karma show him the error of his ways however I did not want Lucy to be on the receiving end of it. When the line "His child is in the hands of strangers. In a minute, in an hour, it will be too late; whatever is happening to her will be set in stone, will belong to the past." came about Melanie flush through my mind. She is someone's child and the way she was treated by David is set in stone. However he did not rape Melanie, Lucy was raped and that changed her.