The Life and Times of Charles Bukowski
One night in Andernach, West Germany, a sergeant in the United States Army serving in Germany crossed paths with a woman following the defeat of Germany from World War I. He had an affair with her, Katharina, whom was a German friend’s sister, and she became pregnant. A month before the baby was born, they wedded. On August 16, 1920, the baby boy was brought into the world and was named Heinrich Karl Bukowski, but we simply know him as Charles Bukowski. He would live on to be one of the nation’s best acclaimed poets to date. (Miles).
By 1930, Bukowski’s family had settled in South Central Los Angeles where his father and grandfather had previously worked and lived but by the 30’s, but Bukowski’s father was often unemployed. During Bukowski’s early childhood, he was shy and anti-social and constantly ridiculed at school for his German accent, his clothing and as a teenager for his severe case of acne; although he was praised for his art work from his teachers, he suffered a battle with dyslexia. Sadly, his home life was not well, either. In his autobiography, Ham on Rye, Bukowski brings the reader to understand that he was repeatedly abused both physically and mentally by his father, beating him for the smallest offence imaginable, while his mother stood by, watched, and agreed with his father. (Miles).
By 2003, Bukowski had a film out, Bukowski -- Born Into This, and in the film he states that his father beat him with a razor strop three times a week from the adolescent ages of 6 to 11. Though traumatic and terrifying to believe, he credits his father for doing this by stating that it helped him with his writing. He claimed that it helped him to understand undeserve...
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By means of comic illustration and parody, Art Spiegelman wrote a graphic novel about the lives of his parents, Vladek and Anja, before and during the Holocaust. Spiegelman’s Maus Volumes I and II delves into the emotional struggle he faced as a result of his father’s failure to recover from the trauma he suffered during the Holocaust. In the novel, Vladek’s inability to cope with the horrors he faced while imprisoned, along with his wife’s tragic death, causes him to become emotionally detached from his son, Art. Consequently, Vladek hinders Art’s emotional growth. However, Art overcomes the emotional trauma his father instilled in him through his writing.
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When he was fifteen years old his mother died from appendicitis. From fifteen years of age to his college years he lived in an all-white neighborhood. From 1914-1917, he shifted from many colleges and academic courses of study as well as he changed his cultural identity growing up. He studied physical education, agriculture, and literature at a total of six colleges and universities from Wisconsin to New York. Although he never completed a degree, his educational pursuits laid the foundation for his writing career. He had the knowledge of philosophy and psychology. He attempted to write when he was a youth, but he made a choice to pursue a literary career in 1919. After he published Cane he became part of New York literary circles. He objected both rivalries that prevailed in the fraternity of writers and to attempts to promote him as a black writer (Clay...
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