The Case Of Feral Children

Choose a play or novel in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions and moral values.”

Most times, anything abnormal or odd tend to be pushed under the rug. Edgar Allan Poe subtly brings attention to topics the are typically ignored. E. A. Poe had far from a perfect childhood. His father left when he was young and his mother died when he was three. Poe also seemed to have a lonely childhood after his parents were gone. He was separated from his relatives and didn’t appear to have many friends. He attended the army and after went into West Point. His academics there were well but he was eventually kicked out because of poor handlings of his duties. Before Poe died, he struggled with depression and a drinking problem. Some believe Poe’s tragic lifetime was the inspiration for some of his stories. Such as, “The Fall of the House of Usher”. A possible theory about this story is that Roderick and the Narrator were one in the same. This essay will discuss the possibility of them being the same through plot, characterization, and personification.

The TLC documentary Wild Child; the Story of Feral Children is a documentary that tells the few of many stories of children that have turned to a feral lifestyle due to parental negligence. Feral, meaning undomesticated, is the used term to describe these children because of the actions they exhibit. The accounts in this documentary range from a young girl who “was raised with the wolves” per say, but instead with her dog, to a little boy who was abandoned in a Ukrainian loft and provided the town strays with food and shelter in return for protection from them and other strays. In some of the cases detailed in this video, these children were far too old by the time they were discovered and missed an extremely crucial time frame in which

The theme of isolation is a heavy premise throughout all three books that help to shape not only certain characters but also provide insight on fundamental qualities of their identities. The object of this essay is to prove who seems to be the most solitary character between the books Light in August by William Faulkner, A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In these stories, the idea of isolation is the loneliness that has been experienced in a characters life. Some characters have experienced their loneliness since early childhood while others have been kept isolated involuntarily. Although these three characters have taken different approaches in their lives, they all ended up isolated from society. As Alfred Kazin believes that Joe Christmas is the most solitary character in American fiction, I would like to discuss how both the villain in A Good Man is Hard to Find and the heroine of The Yellow Wallpaper would not rival Kazin’s opinion. Joe Christmas in Light in August proves to be the most solitary character I have read about, as he is never able to become a full member of society.

By taking the reader through Ethan Frome’s winding emotional journey, Edith Wharton in Ethan Frome, examines the effects of both physical, as well as emotional isolation on the human condition. The novel is set in the frigid winter, likely in the late 1800’s, in the rural, secluded, fictional town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. Ethan’s downtrodden farm is on the outskirts of this already remote, small community. Wharton strategically uses the isolated setting, Ethan’s unmitigated poverty and his loveless marriage, to cut her protagonist off from desperately needed meaningful connections. First, the failing health of his elderly parents forces Ethan to forego his dreams of a urban engineering career, to return to his isolated rural farm,

How does Hallie characterize cruelty? Why does he think that institutionalized cruelty is the worst kind of cruelty?

More than likely that title was alarming to most people because how can one be “too old” for food and a place to say? Imagine being somewhere from the time you were a toddler, then all of a sudden your eighteenth birthday comes and suddenly you are kicked out of the only place you have had to call home for 18 years. That’s how it is for a teenager in the foster care system. It doesn’t matter how good you thought your life was, good behavior, or love, for some turning 18 means freedom, cigarettes, army, voting e.tc however, for children in the system 18 means homeless, hungry and alone.

“Loneliness is a common emotion when someone feels alone, separated from others or unsupported and distressed” (Kennedy). A common occurrence of many great authors is to make a theme regarding loneliness or isolation for example, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”. “The Fall of the House of Usher”, comparatively speaking, is a very challenging read for most, whereas “The Yellow Wallpaper” is more of a relaxed read. There are many differences between “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, however, there is a common occurrence that links the two, loneliness. Throughout the two short fiction pieces both characters, Roderick Usher from “The Fall of the House of Usher and Jane from “The Yellow Wallpaper”, are isolated from the outside world, both characters have an illness that keeps them in isolation, and both characters in some way turn to a form of literature to pass time . All of these aspects contribute significantly to loneliness.

The next step of Dunstan’s journey is to completely leave his life behind and begin a brand new one. He enters into a new world. This occurs when Dunstan “became a member of Magnus Eisengrim’s entourage.” He begins to travel with Magnus because he still wants adventure and he knows that it does not occur often. He says: “This looked liked an adventure, and, at fifty, adventures do not come every day.” Dunstan’s journey is based on adventure. He does not know what he is getting into by joining Magnus Eisengrim’s entourage. There will be something different each day; something new and surprising. By entering a new world, Dunstan is completing one more step of his journey.

World famous poet, Edgar Allan Poe, once wrote in one of his poems, “From childhood’s hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone.” In those lines, Poe demonstrates his love for being alone because his childhood was full of isolation, meaning that the writer grew used to the feeling. Since boyhood throughout his adult life, Edgar Allan Poe endured through a series of unfortunate events. From his parents dying, his animosity with his foster father, his consecutive poverty, to facing rejection from the public, the man’s life was as ominous as his fiction. This essay will discuss the reason behind the writing of one of Edgar Allan

But what if we were completely untouched by society, isolated from all forms of humanity? Without other people to interact with and learn from, babies would grow to be nothing more than a wild animal. Every human being is born with the potential to develop into an intelligent, social creature, but without human influence a person can never develop into what we consider to be a member of human society. One can clearly see this through the reports of feral children. There has been only a few cases reported and very few studied. In cases from the past feral children are reported as wild children who could not speak or communicate in anyway. These children bit, scratched, growled, and walked on all fours. In addition to this primal behavior, they ate grass, ravenously tared apart small animals and devoured the raw meat. The most shocking quality of the children was their apparent lack of sensitivity to pain or cold. (Henslin 66-7) The most famous case of a feral child was “The wild boy of Aveyron” in 1798. At first this case would have been written off as just another folk tale, but a French scientist, Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, conducted immense studies of the

Silas can now reflect upon his previous experiences, as “that drawing o’ the lots is dark”, and believe that things will right themselves “there’s dealings with us- there’s dealings,” (Eliot 180). Silas’ philosophical discussion set a pondering, hopeful mood for the

Silas’s absolute possession of his gold is characterized by the concealment of it. The underground chamber, in which Silas hides his money, can be interpreted as the metaphorical representation of the wickedness in his heart, which is invested with the the parasitic greed for more money. Upon realizing the disappearance of his gold, Silas goes into a frantic episode when he “gave a wild ringing scream” (Eliot 44), for the only idol that fills the void in which social relationship ought to have occupied, is no longer there to numb the pain from solitude. The hoard of gold is Silas’s only companion, and “was hidden away from daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, and started to no human tones” (Eliot 132-133). Not only does the money deprive Silas of the access to the instinctive appreciation

When tragedy strikes, Marner is stripped of his faith and community. He resorts to greed in a desperate attempt to fill the void

In ‘Silas Marner’, people tend to live in secluded communities and rarely have any contact with people living in different areas, which illustrates how relationships are conventionally formed based on similarities in term of daily routine, living areas, tradition and customs. This is demonstrated in how Silas Marner is ostracized from the rest of the community in Raveloe at first, for he comes from a land that is not commonly known by the other villagers, as ‘the world outside their own direct experience was a region of vagueness and mystery’. The fact that they feel almost threatened by the uncertainties and how they quickly the relevance of the existence of any other place but their own illustrates a sense of utter security they feel towards their land, which again suggests how they must have been clinging to the place and will be more accepting towards their fellow villagers than those coming from faraway lands. The exclusiveness is further highlighted by the location of Raveloe, which is a village ‘nestled in a snug well-wooded hollow, quite an hour’s journey on horseback from any turnpike’. This does have significant impacts on their social relationships, for narrow-minded villagers, who do not travel frequently, appear to be vastly prejudiced and are not willing to welcome new or seemingly strange-looking people, which leads to much social segregation, misunderstanding