Manchild In A Promised Land Essay

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Development While reading the novel Manchild in a Promised Land I found myself constantly faced with the question Does forced Maturity affect a child’s development? Well first off “Development” is the process in which an individual has shown, Growth, Maturity, Evolution, etc in a specific field or over a period of time. Forced maturity on the other hand is another form of development, but it is a product of another’s actions or series of events that then lead up to this development. This is an unnatural method that some time has long lasting effects on the individual. Causes of this can consist of Hardship, Expectations, Family Issues for example Death in the Family, Divorce or loss in past relationships. The list can go on for pages, …show more content…

In the Novel the main character Sonny is growing up in Harlem, New York in the late 1940’s early 50’s; Growing up at this time Sonny was faced with Discrimination due to his race, A broken home, etc. All of these things even though they might sound little they are all factors to forcing Sonny to mature at such a young age. The impact it had on Sonny made him fall into a bad place in life, He and his peers around began to abuse drugs it started to become his reality. Early on in the first few chapters of the novel Sonny states “But it seemed as though drugs crawled into all the houses.” this statement was an exaggeration to a extent, because it was also true. While reading the book and doing research on the side I discovered Hundreds of websites with millions of cases due to the heroin outbreak and the epidemic during the 50’s. Sonny was born into and surrounded by this environment, Many chapters focus on the use of these drugs by jazz musicians and gang members. According to Statistics from the Palm Partners Recovery Center “Heroin in use in the 50s was really limited to urban areas and was making its way into the jazz music scene… The raw Turkish opium was refined in Marseilles laboratories and sold to junkies on New York City streets.” The amount of Families/Households in Harlem around this time period that were affected by drugs was 1 out of every 3 resident in

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