There Are No Children Here Essays: Style

Kurt Vonnegut creates the characters within “Harrison Bergeron” using structured and basic sentences. The situation of equality in this story affects the dialogue between the couple George and Hazel. The sentences are short and simple which makes them seem almost robotic to the reader.

In the book, Gang Leader for a Day, a rogue sociologist passionately dives into the lives of one of Chicago’s toughest housing projects in an attempt to develop an insight as to how the urban impoverished lived. Throughout the text it becomes clear that a conflict paradigm is being reflected. A conflict society is based on social inequality, in which some individuals benefit and thrive more than others, which tends to lead to conflict and thus change. This is evident both in the housing projects where a gang known as the “Black Kings” take over and also in the surrounding neighborhoods where the more elite citizens, including persons from the authors university, shy away from associating with the nearby poor black nearby public, thus

(182) praying at the church, or hear the sound of ?mighty wail of moans and voices? (182). And it is almost impossible not to feel the warmth contained in the ?hot, crowded church? (181). In short, the technique used by Hughes is set to put the reader in the same ambiance the young boy is in, thus giving us a closer look at his innocence.

Originally published in 1985, Bel Kaufman's haunting short story Sunday in the Park presents a seemingly innocent and mundane tale of children playing under the watchful eyes of their parents, while exposing the undercurrents of intense emotion which course through every human interaction. Beginning with an anonymous mother and her husband Morton enjoying a picturesque day in the park, along with their toddler son Larry, Kaufman's story immediately jars the reader's sense of expectation by employing a set of contrasting images. By initially describing her husband by observing that "Morton was so city­pale, cooped up all week inside the gray factorylike university" (Kaufman), the mother figure signals a preexisting sense of dissatisfaction with him that soon manifests itself through the confrontation to come. When the young bully begins taunting Larry, silently throwing sand in his hair while menacing both son and mother, Morton is finally forced to intervene and he "put his Times down carefully on his lap and turned his fine, lean face toward the man, smiling the shy, apologetic smile he might have offered a student in pointing out an error in his thinking" (Kaufman). The ensuing standoff between the mild mannered Morton and the father of his son's tormentor is depicted in agonizing fashion by Kaufman, who captures the minutiae of typical human behavior, and the greater symbolism behind those actions, through her sharp and incisive prose.

Wiesel says “ “They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.” Wiesel touches the audience because no one wants to have the feeling of emptiness and loneliness which is what he experienced. Also Wiesel refers to the experience of children which takes an even larger toll on the audience. Atwood says, “ It stinks, though; like a hospital, of antiseptics and sickness, and, on some days, blood which smells the same anywhere, here or at the butcher's.” Atwood lets the reader know what the janitor has experienced and the audience would feel bad because his torture has been normalized and it is part of his everyday

There Are No Children Here is a story of the struggles two preteen boys live with while growing up in the projects. From the first pages the scene is set amongst the all too familiar gun fire blazing through the neighborhood. This story is of eleven year old Lafeyette and nine year old Pharoah dealing with the daily fight for survival in inner-city Chicago circa 1987.

Vonnegut exercised a minimal and comical style of writing to communicate his views against war. His experience in high school and

Alex Kotlowitz's book, There are No Children Here, is a story about two boys, Pharaoh

There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz, tells a story about the family of LaJoe and Paul Rivers. The book focuses on Lafayette and Pharaoh, two of the younger children in the family, and their interactions with each other, the neighborhood, their family, their friends, and the police. Following the family over three years shows the importance of neighborhood factors when it comes to crime. According to Sampson and Groves (1989), social disorganization refers to “the inability of a community structure to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social controls”. Many aspects in the book exemplify how neighborhood factors, social controls, and community factors have impacts on crime. The book exemplifies how neighborhood disadvantage can lead to informal social controls, which in turn produces crime. Due to these factors, social disorganization is the best theory to explain the crime that occurs in There are No Children Here.

The book “There Are No Children Here” by Alex Kotlowitz details the challenges two young boy’s face by being raised in the inner city housing project (Henry Horner Homes). These challenges stem from racism, discrimination, the social construction of reality, social location, social class, and the deviance theory, which is due to their location and influences at which causes many youths to lead a life of crime. The book focuses on the Conflict and Symbolic Interaction theories of sociology. What is the true cause of their struggle? Is it the run down housing, lack of education, race, gangs, violence and drugs? I think that all of these play a part into their everyday

     Alex Kotlowitz’s book, There are No Children Here, is a story about two boys, Pharoah and Lafeyette Rivers growing in the late 1980’s in Henry Horner, a housing project in Chicago. The boys try to retain their youth while they see constant gang violence, death of close friends, their brother in jail and their dad struggling with a drug addiction.

This story begins to drive the sense of emotion with the very surroundings in which it takes place. The author starts the story by setting the scene with describing an apartment as poor, urban, and gloomy. With that description alone, readers can begin to feel pity for the family’s misfortune. After the apartments sad portrayal is displayed, the author intrigues the reader even further by explaining the family’s living arrangements. For example, the author states “It was their third apartment since the start of the war; they had

p. 82). Therefore, the adult narrator’s ability to comment and reflect on his child-self effectively emphasizes the naïve and vulnerable nature of youth, and contributes to the mood of foreboding and suspense throughout the novel, ‘now I was over confident. I expected things to go my way’ (Chapter 1. p. 28).

In the short story “Gryphon” we are able to experience the events that take place through the eyes of a boy named Tommy, the protagonist. Tommy’s life comes off as a monotonous, hamster-wheel routine in which everything is perfectly in place. His mother is even compared to Betty Crocker, who is a basic symbol for perfect homemaking. Even what Tommy classifies as a “bad person” is symbolized in Carol Peterson’s actions when she decides to use sheet of notebook paper to blow her nose! To Tommy, life has been kind, wholesome, sweet, and for the most part boring. That is until one day when things are shaken up by a substitute teacher, Miss Ferenczi.

Irony is, among many other reasons, problematic in the sense that it is both hard to define as well as sometimes hard to understand. Even the most critical and experienced of readers have missed instances of irony at times, and even more so ordinary readers.