A child's' determination for survival - "A Boy Called It" by Dave Pelzer

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A child's' determination for survival

The text "A Boy Called It" by Dave Pelzer allowed me to form strong opinions on the issue of child abuse and influenced my emotional involvement in the novel. The novel is written from the child's point of view and this technique allowed me to become involved by seeing life through his eyes. The tone and vocabulary used also reflect the age and wisdom of the child at that particular time. The first section of a trilogy explores the child's life from age four until he was twelve years old.

This factual account of his life begins with his freedom, and how his life turned out and then reverts to the beginning of his childhood, beginning with the good times and how things changed. The main themes explored are childhood and relationships between the child and his mother, his father, his brothers and teachers at school. What interest me are the child's relationships with others and the effect they have on him.

They were a perfect family. Dave and his brothers had a loving mother and a loving father with whom they enjoyed holidays and regular outings. This perfect happy family changed, for no apparent reason. When Dave was singled out from his siblings and punished for being a "bad boy". Whenever any of the children did anything wrong, Dave received the punishment. Punishment became physical abuse, beginning relatively mildly becoming so severe that he could have died. When his mother began behaving in this manner David was shocked that his mother could be so nasty. "Her voice changed from the nurturing mother to the wicked witch". Dave's mother began watching television all of the time and drinking beer, she became easily irritated and shouted for the slightest reason. She would punish David for no reason; her demands and actions on him had no purpose. However, she never abused him directly in front of his siblings, so David used this to his advantage by devising ways of keeping her occupied until someone came home. Teachers at school began to notice his beaten apperance so the school nurse kept records on his appearance. Eventually, the school gathered enough evidence and risked their jobs by phoning the police in order to rescue David.

Throughout his life, David has a great will to survive and determination not to give in to his mother and let her win. She has no reason to do this, just punishments for the bad things that she invented that David had done. He feels immense relief when she gives in and he is free from her beatings. Although the beatings seem endless, and get worse each time, he still has hope that somehow he will escape. His hopes are shown in his imagination and dreams, also promises made to him by his father. David lives each day at a time, with a hope that he will be given the luxury of food as a reward for completing his chores within his time limit.
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David uses physical ways of avoiding his mother in hope that he will survive. He used time as a tactic to beat his mother, allowing him to feel as if he is winning and beating his mother in the battle to survive. Distracting her and keeping her attention off the clock causes her to lose track of time. David hopes that someone will come home to free him and bring his mother closer to being caught. "I realised the clock was behind me. Without the clock, I felt helpless." This enables him to lock his concentration.

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