Delicate Parent In David Campbell's Essay Envy

In Campbell's narrative essay entitled Envy she explores the emotional effects that having a basically absent parent can have on a child’s life. Campbell’s own father was basically absent from her life leaving her to be raised by her mother, grandmother, and aunt. Her mother believed that by giving them the opportunity to gain “...the same education as a white child was the first step up the rocky road to success” ( 121) for their children. So, on Campbell’s first day of kindergarten her mother and grandmother moved both her and Michael from the neighborhood school into one that was just barely integrated school. Pulling them away from the environment they knew and grew up in, in order to give a better chance to succeed in life. Telling them that they better obey their teachers and “Don’t talk. Listen. Act like you've got some home training” (121). One day after returning home from Pasquotank County, where she visited her father every summer, one of her classmates began talking about her father. This caused her to feel sick to her stomach, experience sharp pains in her chest, and cry uncontrollably. When Sandra the one who made the comment about her father approached her Campbell snapped and threatened

People can only keep their true emotions bottled up for so long before they escape which in many causes can cause a person to snap like Campbell did and say or do things that they later regret. It is only after these emotions escape that a person can truly evaluate their true feelings about their situation and hopefully come to terms with their feeling. Which in Campbell’s case allowed her to realize that all she really wanted was for her father to become a constant presence in her life no matter the consequences