Childhood In Color Purple
Reminisce of the days of being a child. What comes to mind? Romping through the forest, connected to nature? Feeling free and innocent? Basically, what society views childhood to be? Well, guess what; childhood can be hell! Unfortunately, many children have horrible childhoods, suffering from abusive parents. Bad childhood stems from bad parents. Every ten seconds go by, and a parent abuses his child. Acts of rebellion, loss of self-esteem, lack of confidence-all factors are the results from a child being abused. Sadly, sometimes society ignores that aspect. Luckily, literature differs from other mediums in that it can express thoughts and emotional more effectively. Alice Walker's The Color Purple and William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury depict two girls going through a bad childhood. Celie and Caddy experience abuse from their parents, which causes Caddy and Celie to have emotion difficulties in their adult life. Caddy's parents never beat her or sexually molest her; she suffers from psychological neglect, which many people do not see as a type of abuse. Psychological neglect includes the lack of emotional support and love, or the parents never attend to the child. Neither Mr. Compson nor Mrs. Compson
Caddy's psychological neglect from her parents has a profound effect on her. As she grows older, she observes her father's cynicism and her mother's whining. Caddy feels that she must reject the fake Compson world; she would willingly agree to have incest or commit suicide with Quentin, because either one would be a rejection of her parents. She has sex, because each new encounter is a new rejection. She does not love these men; she says, "when they touched me, I died"(171). Caddy does not desire to be like her parents. Caddy tries to disassociate herself from the Compsons; she attempts to express independency and individuality. However, her attempts are in vain. She has an illegitimate child, and her husband ousts her. Even her failure is a fault of her bad parents, because she would have never have the need to rebel if her parents did not reject her. The sweet, innocent childhood that the Brady Bunch or Family Matter children went through is unreal. Parents abuse their children, which makes children go through hell, causing emotional problems for the child. Celie undergoes every type of abuse, and suffer dearly; much of her adult problems trace back to her childhood. Caddy is no different; her problems trace back to her parents neglect. Love, care, support--- each factor is vital to a child. No child deserves to experience a horrible childhood. If today's society wants to keep the heavenly innocent childhood image, then it better focus more at the abuse issue. Because at this very moment, someone is abusing a child. Caddy's parents seem wonderful, compared to Celie's parents. Not only does Celie endure neglect, she experiences verbal, sexual, and physical abuse from her parents. Whereas Mrs. Compson has no excuse, Ceile's mother is not totally at fault; she is mentally ill, and she is victim of a horrible tragedy. Nonetheless, Celie's mother does affect Celie's childhood. The mother's illness causes her to neglect and to verbally abuse Celie. When Fonso abuses Celie, she cannot tur
Some common words found in the essay are:
Neither Compson, Caddy Unconditional, Fonso Celie's, , Celie Celie, Family Matter, Caddy Caddy, Caddy Celie, Celie Fonso, Celie Caddy's, unconditional love, caddy's promiscuity, psychological neglect, emotional support, caddy's parents, celie mother, celie's childhood, innocent childhood, bad parents, physical abuse,
Approximate Word count = 1365
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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