Lullabies For Little Criminals Character Analysis

He was constantly high on heroin, and when he was not, he was grumpy and abusive towards her. Eventually in times of lonesome, Baby got a hold of drugs on her own. First, she tried magic mushrooms. At first, getting high was a way for Baby to entertain herself. However, she eventually tried her father’s drug of choice, heroin. She quickly becomes addicted to the feeling she gets when high off this drug. Heroin entwines itself into Baby’s day-to-day life and begins to impair her normal decision making, “There wasn’t much, but there was enough to make all my anger dissipate. As soon as I was high, I couldn’t even remember what my escape plan had been (569).”Her quick addiction allows Baby to find an escape from her reality. Turning to drugs to fill the void her parents left within her childhood is not only temporary, but it is dangerous. People close to Baby demonstrate first-hand the dangers that this coping mechanism can pose. Her pimp, Alphonse, even died of an overdose with her in the room, “As soon as I looked at Alphonse’s face, I knew that he was dead, even though I had never seen a dead body before (604).” Baby’s method of coping from her father’s negligence is to turn to the exact thing that she witness ruin him, heroin. However, as a child of her age, she would not know any better. Her father is happier and more affectionate towards her while he is high, so it would only make sense to her to think that she would be the

Sharlet Cannon English 1302-56328 Professor T. Heflin August 9th, 2015 The Mother Abortion, a sensitive topic most people don’t want to talk about or try to figure out ways for it to be out-lawed. " The Mother," a poem written by Gwendolyn Brooks looks at abortion from a mothers’ point of view. This poem deals with the heartfelt emotions that a woman may go through after she has had an abortion. The theme, tone and figures of speech written displays overwhelming regret tormenting her mind.

One often hears the saying, “Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in their shoes.” The way an author uses similes can help the reader better understand how the character feel and what they're going through like Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar. Esther Greenwood, a college student, working at a month long job as a guest editor for a fashion magazine feels like an outcast from the rest of the girls; she doesn't seem to fit in. When she arrives back home, she receives several bad news leads her into thinking suicide is the best thing to do. After multiple failed attempts, she is put into a mental hospital where she will gain hope in life and finally discover who she really is. In Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, there are several instances in which the author uses similes to illustrate a more detailed image/description to better portray how the main character felt during her New York job, her suicide attempts, and at her stay at the mental institution.

Barbara Kingsolver uses irony and ____ in order to show differences in the roles of parents. Missy leaves her hometown and stops in a town to eat food. While there, a woman tries to give her a baby.

Language and imagery plays a dramatic role in portraying relationships and feelings/thoughts of the persona. Whilst in ‘Burning Sappho,’ the mother’s attitude towards tasks is portrayed as emotionless (“the child is fed, the dishes are washed, the clothes are ironed and aired,”), language is utilised within ‘Suburban Sonnet’ to construct the mother’s mental state and situation as dire. “Zest and Love drain out with soapy water.” The use of two personal, passionate adjectives and the depiction of them being physically overcome by soapy water directly link the mother’s loss of feelings and fiery emotion to the household chores and duties. For example, she “scours crusted milk,” as a part of her role as mother and housewife as the reader is positioned to reject this requirement as a result of the huge impact to her quality of life (“Veins ache”). The literal image of a dead mouse symbolises the mother’s situation as the ‘soft corpse’ directly represents the mother, that is, emotionally dead as a result of the entrapment by society. The reader is positioned to fully

This experience demonstrates her lack of innocent thoughts, since an innocent child would never ask that question. When Baby asks a boy named Johnny if he would be able to find her some “magic mushrooms”, his response demonstrates how young she really is. He makes fun of her, asking “Are you not just out of diapers?” (76). This quotation shows how she asks questions a twelve year old should never ask, but it also shows how other people see her as a young, innocent child when she really is not. She is not taken seriously by Johnny or any of the people who are older than her, apart from the drug dealers. Consequently, the fact that Baby is exposed to drugs at a young age combined with her early drug use lead to the disintegration of her innocence.

In this novel Taylor is a dynamic character, we see her transform from a young girl who didn’t want to get married or have kids to an independent single mother. In the beginning we get to know her as a self-owned, determined and a stubborn girl who is focused, ambitious and thinks outside the box; because she knows firsthand what is like to see her mother struggle as a single parent. She learned to value every day because pregnancy was like a disease. An example of her considerate outlook is “believe me in those days the girls were dropping by the wayside like seeds off a poppy seed bun and you learned to look at every day as a prize” (3). This small but

Atwood’s “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” perfectly grasps the life-altering heartbreak that occurs after the loss of a child by utilizing literary devices such as imagery, personification, simile, and metaphor. In the poem, an image of a voyage is used to characterize a child’s journey from life to death. “The dangerous river”, is used as a metaphor to describe the birth canal which the child victoriously navigates, but after embarking upon the outside world, the child goes into a “voyage of discovery” (4) that results in his death in the river. “On a landscape stranger than Uranus” (14) emphasizes the estrangement felt by the mother without having any knowledge of the environment. Comparing it to Uranus she describes it to be just as strange as a another planet. In the ninth stanza, the mother reminisces the death of her child as she says, “My foot hit rock” (26) which is a representation that she has hit rock bottom and her life will now never be the same. The final simile of the poem, “I planted him in his country / like a flag” (28-29) identifies the relationship between the dead child and the land. It ties the mother to the land in a way that had not been thought of, a way that is fraught with grief. An extended metaphor is developed throughout the poem, comparing the experience of giving birth that the character had, to a river and its contents. It helps to understand the different stages of birth by expressing the hurricane of emotions, and incidents that occurred with the use of waves expressing times of difficulty and pain.

Her position is inviting for people to look at and make inaccurate judgments about. The way she is dressed gives her a negative appearance. She is wearing skimpy clothing that could be judged as present or absent, in that, the apparel is the same color as the background. This idea displays women as an “easy” object rather than an individual who deserves respect. The angle of her head off to the side instead of straight forward suggests that women are rude. The title of the piece, “Sandra from Baby Baby Wild Things” also hints that women are primarily focused on partying and involving themselves in wild activities depicting them as unprofessional individuals who cannot be taken seriously. All in all, the artist does not portray a very positive theme for

Baby’s life has never been simple but she hopes for a future that will be easier for her. I have chosen the actor “Christian Bale” and the actress “Dakota Fanning” because while reading this novel, I imagined that Baby and her father would look similar to these actors. The two quotes I have chosen, mainly represent the storyline. “You have to know that the life you have is completely yours”, is said by one of Baby’s peers. This quote represents that Baby is young and she does not know a lot about the real world. She is told this because she has been pushed around and unwillingly forced to do things all her life. “Childhood is the most valuable thing that’s taken away from you in life, if you think about it”, is said by Baby as she quotes herself. Ever since she was a child, she has witnessed drugs and mistreatment from people. In the novel, Baby has grown up too fast and has had her childhood taken away from her. My targeted audience for this movie is 18 and up. I think that this movie is targeted for an older audience because of the coarse language. There are many chapters in the novels where there is an immense amount of cursing and where the language is meant for older

The novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals takes place in the ghetto of Montreal. It focuses on the life of a twelve year old girl named Baby. Baby’s mother died in a car accident shortly after she was born and her father is a heroin addict. Her father, Jules, is not often home and does not pay much attention to Baby even when he is. Baby begins to take orders from a pimp, Alphonse. Confused and lonely, she does as he says and takes on the role of a child prostitute. The novel takes the reader through the pains and struggles of a young girl living in a drug-ridden city with no parental guidance to keep her out of trouble.

The babies being devoured, like Swift’s feelings of being devoured by leadership in society, stirs up emotions in both rich and poor people. This use of archetypal patterns and images (motherhood, birth, death, and rebirth) cause emotions in every reader no matter what their

In this stylistic analysis of the lost baby poem written by Lucille Clifton I will deal mainly with two aspects of stylistic: derivation and parallelism features present in the poem. However I will first give a general interpretation of the poem to link more easily the stylistic features with the meaning of the poem itself.

This section of the novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, introduces the rising action and expands on the theme of childhood. Throughout the chapters, the main character undergoes many dynamic changes that cause her to develop her character, because of her relationship with Jules continues to deteriorate that she starts smoking. On the other hand, there is the introduction of new minor characters such as Theo, Zoe, and Alphonse. Alphonse is the antagonist of the novel that represents the adult perspective of Baby as she experiences the world of work, hardships, and the loss of innocence at a young age. In addition, she encounters another internal conflict in the novel, which is the struggle of Baby trying to make new friends. The author uses

At times the grammar did not flow smoothly. So, you had to really focus and maybe even have to read it twice in order to understand it. The part that was the hardest for me to understand was the flash forward at the end of the book. "As I looked around the room, I regret my decision to dress up. My feathered hat, Annekes big lemon colored bow, make the flat look shabbier (Young, pg.356)." At first I thought that Cyrla was wearing one of Annekes bows but after reading more of the conversation I finally realized that Anneke was Cyrla's little girls name. Maybe this was meant to be a strength but throughout the story I found it to be a downside. Another weakness was that I could not apply this to my life. Not saying that I would ever want to be in this position but it took away a small amount of connection. Not noting what it feels like to be pregnant I also don't know what those women went through or how much pain and suffering was caused. "You're afraid he'll feel like he's yours, then? How do you think of him now? Like a medical condition. Something to get over (Young, pg 141)." They couldn't attach themselves to their babies because then the would never be able to let them go and they would go mad. Someone was has gone through a pregnancy might be able to connect on the aspect of the connection between a mother and child but I was not able