Loss of Innocence in Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill

Children who are neglected by the people they care for during their childhood will find potentially harmful ways to cope on their own. This rings true in the circumstance of Baby in the novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill. Of Baby’s friends her age, she often chose the most troublesome, she begins to cope by means of drug use, and she sells her body in an attempt to gain self-worth. Baby’s father failed to care for her as a father should, especially in the absence of a mother. This forces Baby to find ways of dealing with his negligence on her own.

A child is known for having innocence, and bad experiences strip kids of it. In Sarah’s

Everyone is born into this world with a sense of innocence, completely oblivious to the cruelties of the world. However, as humans grow up and reach early- adulthood, they begin to realize the realities of this world, all that is real and all that is, in fact, a figment of the imagination. As people learn that it is truly impossible to stay hidden from the harsh realities of adulthood for their entire life, they also learn that it is impossible to shield others from these truths as well. They learn that although they may not be able to protect themselves from life’s misfortunes, they must perceiver, move forward, and not hold anyone back in their tracks. Just as all humans eventually learn to accept and move past life’s various misfortunes,

Nature versus nurture, is the question. Are we really born as the person we always will be, or does external influences have a crucial effect on who we will become. In the novel Lullabies for Little Criminals the protagonists Baby is seen to have an absence of an adequate caregiver or prominent parental figure in her life. Her mother passed away when she was very young with only her teenage father to care for her. Jules her father, shows little interest in his child. Constantly leaving her to fend for herself and issuing verbal and physical abuse. This causes the young adolescent girl to experience great hardship as she tried to get on with life, without proper role model and guidance. The adverse character development of Baby throughout the novel supports the theme of the necessity of a proper role model in the upbringing of a child. Without the proper guidance a child will begin to take impression to her environment. No matter who they were destined to be, they will always become products of their own surroundings. Her impression of her corrupt environment causes her many problems in her life such as her inability to form and maintain healthy romantic relationships, to gain a reputable and appropriate career for her aptitude, and her desire not to pursue a higher level of education.

Childhood is an important time in a person’s life, a time where one can be carefree and do as they please without having to worry about what others think of them. During this stage of life, children are groomed and prepared for the transition between childhood and adulthood to be as smooth as possible. However, in Heather O’Neil’s novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, Baby throws herself into the adult world without giving any second thought or even having the proper knowledge to survive or even to manage herself. This causes her to follow the wrong paths and trust the wrong people. Baby grows wise beyond her years, and soon becomes stuck in the middle of the two worlds, as she is too young for the adult world but too old for the child world. This traps her with her having nowhere else to go except continue on the path she is already heading. Baby’s loss of innocence at such a young age showcases that one cannot properly mature and be ready for the future without having a stable childhood. This loss is shown through Jules’ lack of parental ability, her exposure to the adult world at a young age, and her struggle with herself. Adding all three together causes damage to Baby that no one should experience.

Childhood is a crucial time in a person’s life and it needs to be kept innocent and pure for the child’s well-being later in life. The most important recurring theme in the novel Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill is the loss of innocence at a young age and the profound complications later in life. The complete loss of innocence is built-up with multiple different experiences over time. For Baby, these experiences are: when she is first exposed to drug use, when she spends time in foster care and when she becomes engaged in prostitution.

In A Separate Peace, John Knowles carries the theme of the inevitable loss of innocence throughout the entire novel. Several characters in the novel sustain both positive and negative changes, resulting from the change of the peaceful summer sessions at Devon to the reality of World War II. While some characters embrace their development through their loss of innocence, others are at war with themselves trying to preserve that innocence.

After analyzing Lullabies for little criminals in a feminist theory lens, it becomes clear that this novel is based on the portrayal of women In a male dominated society. Men are described as stronger or more important in the story than women are. Baby meets a lot of women in her 2 year life span in the novel, but they never make as much of an imprint in her life as the males do. She has no mother and so you think that she would be out looking for someone who can be a role model for her. Instead because of the way her society is built she is forced into something that the men think is normal, and that all the women seem to be doing. Her father albeit being a junkie has high hopes for his daughter and doesn 't want her to be seen as a “whore”, yet even he can 't stop the pressure of society being put on her.

Innocence. What is Innocence? According to the Cambridge Dictionaries, innocence holds multiple definitions from being proven not guilty to a lack of knowledge or understanding. Although the protagonist of A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah, has seemingly lost his innocence to the war, he has remained innocent in the eyes of both morality and the constitution of his country throughout his memoir. Beah’s memoir lays out his life in Sierra Leone, his life during the war before his was a soldier, while he was a soldier, and his rehabilitation.

In the summer of 1994 an Illinois woman’s buzzer rang at her apartment complex in Waukegan. She went downstairs to check after nobody went upstairs to her apartment. As soon as she reached the door downstairs, two men forced her into a dark colored sedan, kidnapped her, and raped her. Distraught after her attack, the victim wandered until she ultimately found a Seven Eleven close by and the police were called. When the police arrived, the victim said she was attacked by two Hispanic men that looked to be in their mid-twenties and a bit taller than her height of five feet and seven inches. The car that she was forced into was described as dark colored, older, having four doors and tinted windows. The victim’s boyfriend saw Angel Gonzalez’s car in the apartment complex parking lot and it matched the characteristics that the woman used to describe the assailant’s car. Police later stopped Gonzalez’s car and the victim acknowledged that the car was the one she described. She was then asked if Gonzalez was one of her attackers, and she was certain that he was, despite her being in the backseat of the police car while he was in front of it. Not only was he not close enough for her to get a clear view, but he also had facial hair and a birthmark, both characteristics that she did not use to describe her attackers. This led to Gonzalez being in police custody for interrogation where they did not allow him to sleep. When he was interrogated, he

The Innocence Project is a non-profit organization that is used to free wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing and to reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

Cedric came along and called Barbara and asked about the boy, which he wants to see him. He wants to be a father to him because he wasn’t the perfect of a fatherhood to the child, so he wants to see him and get to know him as well. Cedric Jr. walked into an ambush when his father, that is a lifelong thief, he determined to teach his new found son a lesson about stealing. “ The boy was made to strip, and the whipping with a thick leather belt was ferocious, halted only when Joyce finally grabbed Gilliam’s arm and screamed for him to stop”( Suskind 34). Cedric is showing his son bad things that he isn’t suppose to see and his son is stopping him from making a huge mistake as well. Cedric now learned about betrayal and misplaced trust, he was picked up from heroin dealing and armed robbery and that made him disappear and end up in jail for 12 to 36 years in

The Innocence Project was established in the wake of a landmark study by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate with help from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (Schneider, 2013). This study found that there were numerous reasons why people are wrongfully convicted including, but not limited to eye witness identification, perjured testimony, improper forensic science techniques, and government misconduct (Roberts & Weathered, 2009) The original Innocence Project was founded twenty two (22) years ago as a part of the Cardoza School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York City, New York (Davis, 2012). The Innocence Projects primary goal is to exonerate those whom have been convicted of a crime when there is DNA evidence available to be tested or re-tested (Mitchell, 2011). DNA testing has been possible in five (5) percent to ten (10) percent of cases since 1992 (Risinger, 2007). On the other side, other members of the Innocence Project help to exonerate those have been convicted of a crime where there is no DNA evidence to test. A goal of the Innocence Project is to conduct research on the reasons for wrongful convictions, how to fix the criminal justice system, as well as advocate for those who have been wrongfully convicted (Steiker & Steiker, 2005). The members of this organization strive to teach the world about the dangers of wrongful convictions. To date, this non-profit legal organization, has freed three hundred eighteen (318)

The Last Days of Innocence talks about the involvement of America in World War 1, when more than five million servicemen took part, and nearly a quarter were wounded or dead. The author documents the alliance among the American, French, and British who plays a significant role in defeating Germany and other Axis nations. Specifically in chapter 23, “Do You Want To Live Forever”, ................. The chapter starts out with the German’s attempt to damage the French morale by turning Paris’ mood of defeat and depression into panic with the German’s new weapons of long range guns that could fire seventy-five miles away. Analysts say that

In the novella “Down the Rabbit Hole” by Pablo Juan Villalobos, the story revolves around the concept of innocence. What makes this novella different from other literature that discuss innocence is that the main character Tochtli does not actual move from innocence to experience but rather stays innocent but as the audience reads on they figure out that tochtli has moved further and further away from pure innocence. In the beginning of the novella in the short notes ahead innocence is explained in the context of the novella as being incomprehension. This is a theme that is revealed throughout the entirety of the novella. The novella Down the rabbit hole sets the scene inside a palace of a later understood drug lord, who is the father of tochtli, the main character. Tochtli is only seven and therefor does not have an exact grip on what is happening around him. Juan pablo Villalobos however reveals information in such a way that the truth escapes the innocent mind of tochtli but screams out to the readers.