Question

I will never total it all now. I will never come in to say: She was a child seldom smiled at. Herfatherleft me before she was a year old. I worked her first six years when there was work, or I sent her home and to his relatives. There were years she had careshe hated. She was dark and thin and foreign‐looking in a world where the prestige went to blondness and curly hair and dimples, slow where glibness was prized. She was a child of anxious, not proud, love. We were poor and could not afford for her the soil of easy growth. I was a young mother, I was a distracted mother. There were the other children pushing up, demanding. Her younger sister was all that she was not. She did not like me to touch her. She kept too much in herself, her life was such she had to keep too much in herself. My wisdom came too late. She has much in her and probably nothing will come of it. She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear. What theme is being expressed in the description above?

Answer 1

I would say the theme is that when a child grows up, what his/her circumstances are determines to a large degree how they will fare in life. In this case the girl was abandoned by her father and her mother couldn't look after her because she had to work so her daughter had to be brought up by relatives. Also, she is described as dark so perhaps dark skinned which would make her a target for racism if say in Canada or the US. Dr Gabor Mate, a medical doctor in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, BC Canada says that, for example, drug addicts have most often had a terrible upbringing so they have sought relief from the emotional and physical pain with narcotics. For example, one baby was kept in the dryer with a weight on the lid while his mom went to bars to pick up men.