Hell, humiliation, and hardships is what Dave Pelzer had to deal with for eight years of his atrocious childhood. A Child Called “It” is a memoir that apprises Dave Pelzer’s childhood life, and how it transformed from a mirthful summer to a pure stone-cold winter. Pelzer’s psychotic and alcoholic mother both physically and mentally abused and neglected him from ages four to twelve. Pelzer’s mother referred to him as “the boy” and even dehumanizing him by calling him “a nobody, an it”. Pelzer was treated like a slave, having to do all the chores around the house on time and ordinarily had to play his mother’s tortuous games; these games usually caused Pelzer severe injuries. Through imagery and repetition, Pelzer recounts his monstrous abuse story, and how he used the power of determination to survive and to inspire the readers to have courage.
Everyone’s life is not perfect because we don’t have a yellow brick road to show us the way, but some people have a more appalling life than others and Pelzer’s childhood was one of them. Pelzer went through a lot including starvation and having to find food without his mother knowing because if she did he would be punished. One time Pelzer decided to steal frozen food from the school cafeteria because he wasn’t feed for days. When his mother founded out, as punishment and
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Pelzer used imagery when he had to play one of his Mother barbaric games as punishment such as drinking ammonia, gas chambers made from cleaning chemicals, and gruesome arm burning. Repetition was used by Pelzer, when he decided to never let his mother to fully annihilate him; giving him hope that he will rise and escape his iron cage and chains. This memoir was a perfect way for people to see the hell a domestic abused child lived, and that there should be a stop to the 702,000 children being maltreated every