Lullabies For Little Criminals Summary

As Karl Marx said “[People] make their own history but, they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past." The idea of individual life being built upon preexisting conditions, foundations inherited from the past, is exemplified in the novel Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill. The story is narrated by Baby – the 12 year-old daughter of single father and heroin addict named Jules. Born into a milieu of crime, poverty, drugs and despair, the protagonist is confronted with the challenge of developing as young girl, meeting the demands and expectations of Canadian society, while steadily fastened to the yoke of her inherited past. This paper explores the pathway effects on Baby’s formation by preexisting conditions – especially in family and society. Baby was born into an unstable and derelict environment, thanks, in large measure, to her father Jules’ heroin addiction and a lack of maternal support. The uncertainties created by crime and poverty throughout the girl’s formative years causes Baby to fill the cracks of her broken foundation with the insufficient, but readily available, means in her surroundings. An example of this is how Baby finds a maternal influence in a Montreal prostitute named Alphonse: “when Alphonse came into my

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