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The effects of child abuse and neglect
The effects of child abuse and neglect
The effects of child abuse and neglect
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In a normal functioning family, both parent and child care for and love one another, and display these feelings. A parent is required to nurture his or her child and assure that the child feels loved by spending time together, and by giving the child sufficient attention. However, there are often times when a parent is unable to fulfill these requirements, which can ultimately have damaging effects on the child. A child who is neglected by his or her parents “perceives the world as a hostile and uncaring place. In addition to this negative perception of the world, the neglect a child faces affects later interaction with his or her peers, prompting the child to become anxious and overly withdrawn” (Goldman). This neglectful type of parenting proves to be a pattern in the novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, as the main characters, Jimmy, Crake, and Oryx are crucially affected by their parents’ choices and are unjustly abandoned by them. In this novel, the neglect of parents, especially mothers, is clearly reflected in the behaviours of the three main characters.
Neglecting a child consists not only of failing to provide life’s necessities, such as food, water, shelter and clothing, but also of inadequate attention and love. This parental neglect is seen in several characters, including Jimmy and his mother, Sharon. Sharon works for a large biotechnology corporation, and she is happiest while working there. However, when Jimmy reaches school age, she quits without reason and her mood degenerates. She becomes distant, depressed, and anxious, and no longer pays attention to Jimmy. This lack of attention that Jimmy faces gravely hurts him, but it does not compare to the feelings he experiences when he “finds a note on the kitchen ...
... middle of paper ...
...and caring environment?
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. Toronto: Seal Books, 2003. 71-381 Print.
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The children also argue with their mother often. The children think that their mother, with no doubt, will be perfect. They idealize their mothers as angel who will save them from all their problems, which the mothers actually never do. The children get angry at their false hopes and realize that their mothers aren’t going to...
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Bouson, J. Brooks. Margaret Atwood the robber bride, the blind assassin, Oryx and Crake. London: Continuum, 2010. Print.
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The protective nature that parents have for their children is one of the most important traits that all parents need to have to raise their child well. However, even too much of a good thing can be poison. This is especially true for the characters in both the novel Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones, and the short story Saturday Climbing, by W.D Valgardson. In Mister Pip, Delores loves her daughter, Matilda, and is extremely protective of her, so when Matilda starts to become pulled towards the world that Mr. Watts presents through the book Great Expectations, Delores takes action in the fear of losing her daughter to another world, but this overprotectiveness results in terrible consequences. Similarly, in Saturday Climbing, Barry is extremely protective of his daughter, Moira, and is afraid of letting her to have too much responsibility. However, she is soon going to university, and thus need to learn how to support herself. The result is the opposite of what occurs in Mister Pip, as Barry eventually accepts that Moira is growing and has to let go, while Delores continues fighting to hold Matilda to the end, until her sudden death by the Redskins. Through the stories of both Mister Pip and Saturday Climbing, Jones and Valgardson show how a parent, no matter how much they try to deny it, will eventually have let go of their child, and depending on the parent’s acceptance, the relationship can be either continue on, although more distant, or be forcibly stretched and broken through conflict.
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Ingersoll, Earl G. “Survival In Margaret Atwood’s “Novel Oryx And Crake.” Extrapolation (University Of Texas At
In Margaret Atwood’s novel, Oryx and Crake, she constantly places the reader in an uncomfortable environment. The story takes place in a not so distant future where today’s world no longer exists due to an unknown catastrophe. The only human is a man who calls himself the Abominable Snowman or Snowman for short, but in his childhood days his name was Jimmy. If the thought of being all alone in the world is not uneasy enough, Atwood takes this opportunity to point out the flaws of the modern world through Snowman’s reminiscing about Jimmy’s childhood. The truths exposed are events that people do not want to acknowledge: animal abuse for human advancement, elimination of human interaction due to technology, and at the core of the novel is the disturbing imagery that slavery is still present. Modern day servitude is an unsettling topic that has remained undercover for far too long. However, the veracity is exposed in the traumatic story of Oryx. In order to understand the troubled societies of today, Atwood unmasks the dark world of childhood bondage through the character Oryx, but she gives subtle insights on how to change the world for the better before it is too late.
As the boy has no one to trust and believe in except his father, he is only willing to live if his father remains with him. When the man realizes he is unable to keep on the journey with the boy, he refuses to leave the man by answering “you’re going to be okay, papa. I want to be with you” when he asks him to “keep going south [and] do everything the way [they] did it” (278). From an adolescent perspective, he fears the uneasiness of being without his father who is the only support of him. As his father is the only person whom he can depend on and receive love from, he is incapable to imagine how to survive in loneliness. Even though the father and son are the essential for each other, they are divergent in terms of personality. The son is a resilient, as well as sensitive and compassionate character compares to his father. In many circumstances, he often shows sympathy towards others while the father is being protective and concerns about keeping alive from danger. Moreover, his priority is to be kind and provide comfort to others other than being harmful. The boy constantly inquires and ensures “[they] wouldn’t ever eat anybody” despite the condition (128). This performs innocence and examines the perspective of being peaceful in the boy’s point of view. Although father and son are the only encourages of each other in isolation, they frequently acquire hope in a despairing
The Goose and the Golden Egg in the style of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake
The neglect from the parents is amplified with the symbolism of the snowflake quilt and the allusion to “Hansel and Grethel.” In the real world, parental abuse and neglect can negatively impact a child’s life forever. Examples of long term effects would be depression or drug and alcohol abuse. Bishop portrays these examples of the cruelty of neglect by using certain literary techniques in “The Farmer’s