Marcia Bradley's powerful novel The Home for Wayward Girls explores the horrifying reality of child abuse in the shadow of an allegedly stable setting. Bradley's narrative, which is set against the background of a residential facility designed to help problematic adolescent girls, highlights the dark underside of abuse that is frequently kept hidden behind closed doors. Simply put, The Home for Wayward Girls addresses the harsh reality that abuse goes beyond any boundaries and breaches even the supposedly safe havens intended to offer comfort and guidance. Bradley analyzes the complex mechanics of abuse via her characters, showing how abuse may take many different forms and impact people in separate ways. Additionally, this novel shows various …show more content…
Although William consistently targets Elsie, Loretta genuinely believes that they will get out of this situation and leave the ranch permanently. Loretta often uses fantasy as a defense mechanism against the abuse she endures. In chapter 9 we learn that Loretta and Elsie have created a “freedom list” that consists of everything banned from the ranch and activities they plan to do when free. While talking to Elsie, Loretta states she is making a list for “Everything that is yet to be, every bit of stuff we’ve promised ourselves” (Bradley, 2023, p. 100). This caused me a mix of emotions, specifically heartbreak and joy. There is a sense of despair because as the reader, I desperately want them to leave the ranch, but I am fearful that William will figure out their motives and prevent them from leaving. Alternatively, I am joyful because despite the constant abuse Loretta and Elsie endure, they are looking towards their future as well as how many things will be different for them. For example, one of the things on their list is joining a community college and getting a …show more content…
Additionally, I believe Marcia Bradley emphasizes mental health greatly as this story truly shows that abuse is not something someone can look past overnight. It often takes several years to fully overcome abuse and move, and this can alone be done with patience and various mental health strategies, like therapy or meditation. In conclusion, the novel The Home for Wayward Girls by Marcia Bradley offers an emotional discussion about concepts like resiliency and community. Through the experiences of individuals such as Loretta, the story emphasizes how crucial compassion and understanding are to overcoming abuse. Through concepts of psychological abuse, physical abuse, and the use of defence mechanisms, Loretta is able to move forwards past her abusive family towards a brighter, further advocate for rights against abuse of all kinds. Despite the theme of the novel, The Home for Wayward Girls leaves readers feeling positive and optimistic about the future. The Home for Wayward Girls is an important reminder that, despite the worst of circumstances, hope and redemption are always attainable for those who are prepared to look for them like Loretta
In the essay "Overcoming Abuse - My Story", Shawna Platt talks about her childhood with her alcoholic parents and her struggles. She has experienced neglect, domestic, emotional and sexual abuse. She also talks about how she overcame all the abuse, the way the abuse effected her mental health, and how she broke the cycle with her children. While reading this essay, the one incident stood out the most was that her parents left Shawna alone with her newborn sister. At the time, Shawna was only ten years old.
High Sky Children’s Ranch first opened their doors in 1963, when a woman named Joan Nobles was concerned about girls who had no absolutely no place to go. She was the president of the PTA when she heard a young juvenile probation officer speak about the need for a home for those girls that had no where to go. She, along with many others, worked for three years to open the first home. In 1963 the first home was opened and housed five girls (High Sky Children’s Ranch, 2011). In 1985 High Sky changed their license to accept both boys and girls, which enabled them to keep sibling groups together. In 1987 High Sky was relicensed as a treatment facility to work with kids who were more traumatized or needed a higher level of care and was later licensed as a Therapeutic Foster Care. These programs help i...
Jasmine Beckford’s case is the oldest out of the three; in 1984 Jasmine died as a result of long-term abuse aged 4. In 1981 her and her younger sister suffered serious injuries and were paced with foster carers for six months. After this they were allowed back home with their mother on a trial basis as social services were meant to support them. During the last ten months of Jasmine’s life she was only seen once by social workers (Corby, 2006).
Neglect and the lack of care from society is affecting the life of Theresa Flores. As young girls they are being forgotten by their community and society as human beings who need to be cared for as they grow and heal from the traumatic events in their life. The stories of Theresa and Rachel prove events of human trafficking have taken place in the United States during the 1980’s-2000’s and are currently occurring. In The Slave Across the Street by Theresa Flores, Theresa informs the reader of her experiences with neglect and the effects these experiences have on her. As Theresa begins to show signs of physical abuse, the adults in her schools and community are taking no notice in fear the results would affect themselves. Theresa says, “By doing nothings, turning a blind eye, they
... Joyce Dorado. "Who Are We, But For The Stories We Tell: Family Stories And Healing." Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, And Policy 2.3 (2010): 243-249. PsycARTICLES. Web. 2 May 2014.
A Stolen Life by Jaycee Lee Dugard is an autobiography recounting the chilling memories that make up the author’s past. She abducted when she was eleven years old by a man named Phillip Garrido with the help of his wife Nancy. “I was kept in a backyard and not allowed to say my own name,” (Dugard ix). She began her life relatively normally. She had a wonderful loving mother, a beautiful baby sister,, and some really good friends at school. Her outlook on life was bright until June 10th, 1991, the day of her abduction. The story was published a little while after her liberation from the backyard nightmare. She attended multiple therapy sessions to help her cope before she had the courage to share her amazing story. For example she says, “My growth has not been an overnight phenomenon…it has slowly and surely come about,” (D 261). She finally began to put the pieces of her life back together and decided to go a leap further and reach out to other families in similar situations. She has founded the J A Y C Foundation or Just Ask Yourself to Care. One of her goals was, amazingly, to ensure that other families have the help that they need. Another motive for writing the book may have also been to become a concrete form of closure for Miss Dugard and her family. It shows her amazing recovery while also retelling of all of the hardships she had to endure and overcome. She also writes the memoir in a very powerful and curious way. She writes with very simple language and sentence structures. This becomes a constant reminder for the reader that she was a very young girl when she was taken. She was stripped of the knowledge many people take for granted. She writes for her last level of education. She also describes all of the even...
Traumatic events occur in all shapes and sizes. Traumatic events can influence a person’s life either in a positive way or a negative way. People can either make the best of what happened to them, or fall into a dark spiral downward—leaving some anxious or depressed. In the case of the Jeannette Walls, she tells the story of her ever chaotic and traumatic life as a child and young adolescent. Throughout her life she was exposed to being on fire, sexual assault, domestic violence, and many more traumatizing incidents. While these events are highly stressful and can cause severe mental problems, within the exposed person, Jeannette had the resilience to overcome and grow from the experiences her past had left her with.
In this world there are many types of abuse or neglect that aren’t always noticed and no one really talks about. We never notice that there are many different types of abuse because we do think that it is so bad that we don’t want to look into it. Social workers specialize in removing the children from the home because they have these things in their lives. Some parents would never dream of abusing their children, and some would never call it abuse. There were several different types of abuse present in the book The Glass Castle, even evidence that the children should be removed from the home.
From a very young age, Bone was sexually abused by her step-father, Glen Waddell. Like Bone, Dorothy Allison also suffered abuse from her step-father, starting at the young age of five years-old. During the time of the novel, and until recent years, it was unthinkable to speak of any sort of abuse outside the household. Throughout history, children have been victims of abuse by their parents or other adults, and fo...
America struggles to find equality, and by bystanding the stripping of its youth, continual prolonging is inevitable. Raising this nation’s children through nurturing and care is the first step to uplifting America as a whole. In 2012 alone, 1593 of America’s children died at the hands of child abuse, 70.3% of whom were younger than the age of three (Safe Horizon). In order to prevent further child abuse, the American government should address stricter child protection laws, psychological stability, and increase the recognition of those that have released their stories. Stories by Mary Ellen Wilson.
...hich is about 238,000 people a year. Of all of these cases, 60% are never reported. A shocking two-thirds of these accounts of rape were committed by someone the person knew. As well as abuse, child abuse is an issue of today. About 70% of these children are under four years old about many never receive the help they need. There is also a tie between physical, sexual and emotional abuse in families that have a lower income of less than $1,500 a year. Over the last few years, abuse and murder have started to decrease, but they are no where closer to ending. However, while Joyce Carol Oates wrote a majority of her books from the 60’s to the 2000s, murder and abuse were at their peak. In reading Oates’s novels from this time period, one can see the real tragedy of so many Americans have faces, many who were unable to find a voice to express what was happening to them.
The publication of The Round House by Louise Erdrich serves as a literary feat and national victory for sexual assault survivors and activists through the author 's realistic depiction and exploration into the brutal effects that domestic violence has on a victim, family, and community. In The Round House, Geraldine 's traumatic assault during the summer of 1988 is not to be treated as an isolated incident, but a common occurrence that has affected millions of Americans and evolved into a national domestic violence crisis. The lasting emotional, mental, and relational effect of sexual assault and trauma are critical matters that are rarely explicated in modern literature, much
The job of a child welfare worker appears to be a demanding profession that promotes the child’s safety, but also strengthens the family organization around them in order to successfully raise the children. This child welfare workers work in the system known as the Child Protective Services whose initiative is to protect the overall welfare of the child. The short novel From the Eye of the Storm: the Experiences of a Child Welfare Worker by Cynthia Crosson-Tower demonstrates the skills necessary to deal with the practice of social work along with both its challenges and its happy moments. The novel consists of some of the cases involving Tower’s actual career in social work. In reading the book, I was able to experience some of the actual cases in which children dealt with physical and mental abuse from their families that caused them to end up within the system. Also, some of these children had issues in adapting to foster and adoptive families based on the issues they faced earlier in life. As we have learned earlier in the course, the violence that a child experiences early in life has an overall affect on the person they become as they grow into adulthood. When children deal with adverse childhood experiences, they are at a higher risk for abusing drugs and/or alcohol, increased likelihood of abusing their own child or spouse, higher rates of violent and nonviolent criminal behavior, along with several other issues throughout their lifespan.
When faced with a life altering situation although Molly’s characteristics and personality aid her in courageously defying them, the effects of facing this traumatic event will lead to long term psychological repercussions. When severe harm is inflicted on a person’s psyche, it is viewed as an emotional trauma (Levers, 2012). The emotional harm inflicted on Molly’s psyche originates from different dimensions; like her upbringing, her trauma is multidimensional too. As a child of the Indigenous community, whose ancestors and elders were killed violently in inter-group conflicts, and whose children were forcefully removed from families, Molly is would experience intergenerational trauma (Atkinson, 2002). Intergenerational trauma is trauma passed down from one generation to another; as a close knitted community group, the grief experienced by family members of losing their loved ones, would have been transferred across generations (Atkinson,
Conflict is a staple of literature – literature can be as illuminating as anything else as to what causes the distrust between individuals, groups, and nations. The Left Hand of Darkness explores what it means to be a renegade is great depth – as well as complex questions about gender and politics. The novel follows the story of Ai, a male who is sent from his home to the planet Gethen, charged with convincing them to join a coalition of planets. He spends time in the land of Karhide, and in two years fails to convince them to join the proposed alliance.