Issues In Jesse's Ashes

L. Delos Santos
Ms. DiLorenzo
NBE3U1
13 June 2023
Influences Challenging Jesse’s Rehabilitation Throughout the novel From the Ashes, Jesse encounters many people who have a positive impact on his life. Some contribute overall to his recovery in a large way, helping him to later overcome the challenges of addiction and poverty. Others, primarily help him overcome challenges in his daily life. These are people who help him overcome struggles concerning his mental health and identity, seeking to find ways to guide him through said difficulties. Be that as it may, these influences also have a negative impact on his life and even facilitate his addictions unintentionally. Some of his experiences with others can create and impose expectations on

While his dad’s addiction and parenting method introduced him to the concept of drugs at an early age, the more ‘positive’ influences in his life falsely help Jesse and further encourage his habits. The novel states the similarities between Sonny Thistle and Jesse being near identical, which doesn’t go unnoticed by his grandfather. His method of parenting revolves around disciplining him more as a means to prevent his son’s destructive and erratic nature in Jesse. His overprotective mindset ultimately drives Jesse further into the life he feared he would lead. Especially prevalent following Jesse’s breakup with Karen, where he kicks Jesse out screaming, “You’re just a fucking asshole like Sonny, to shit all over love like that… Pack your things. You can’t stay here anymore” (Thistle 153). This action leads to his homelessness and his insistence of not helping Jesse is contrasted when he and Jesse finally meet later in the novel, where he claims that his actions were to ‘benefit’ him and make him grow to a better person. A large contributor to Jesse’s rehabilitation is his mother, who later in the novel, had repaired her relationship with Jesse and had supported his recovery. But years prior, Jesse’s mother had been a large contributor to Jesse’s lifestyle. Her absence created a hole in Jesse’s life that would never be repaired. She left her children with their father due

Prevalent in study is the large influence of abuse, social isolation and maternal separation on substance abuse in adulthood. Directly correlating with Jesse’s life and the stress put onto him by his family. More apparent are the effects of being separated from his mother, in particular, when his jealousy and anger are showcased when his mother introduces him to her new family. Feeling particularly hateful towards Daniel as the youngest in the family after being introduced. This is derived from the expectation of being the youngest in the family, and in turn, being rewarded and treated favourably to others. With the breaking of this expectation creating the rift between him and his family. The effects of early life stress on Jesse’s adulthood and his later issues with drugs is further proven by the article, exemplifying the effects of his mother’s disappearance, and his grandfather’s overwhelming amount of discipline as main contributing factors to Jesse’s addiction to drugs in the