My Life With Bonnie And Clyde Analysis

Blanche Barrow’s My Life with Bonnie and Clyde recalls the personal account of the Barrow gang. This book is a gathering of Blanche's memoirs that she wrote while in prison from 1933 until her death in 1939. The memoirs were edited by John Neal Phillips. The memoirs highlight the moral weakness of Blanche and loyalty to her loved one which ultimately led to her descent into a life of crime.

My Life with Bonnie and Clyde depicts a “day in the life” of the reluctant member of the Barrow gang. By using a primary source as the narrator, there is more depth to the book. In ways, it seems that the sole purpose of My Life with Bonnie and Clyde was to show, to an extent, sentiment towards Blanche. She believed that she never intended to be a criminal, and was dragged into the fray by Bonnie and Clyde. Blanche’s loyalty to her Buck Barrow is a predominant trait that she held dear to her throughout the memoir. She never blamed her husband for getting involved with the Barrow gang. However, Buck was the one who drew Blanche deeper and deeper into the crimes. She never considers that she could have refused to accompany him with the gang. Instead of recognizing that both she and Buck were moral weaklings, Blanche wants us to glorify her as a faithful wife, and then wants to complain about the hardships she

Here, she claims that she is an “innocent” person that was trapped in a net crime. She hoped that women and girls alike could learn from her mistakes that lead to her life as an outlaw. Blanche believed that an ex-convict like herself could live an honest life, if given the chance. She mentions her father and her desire to go to him, since he is the only family she holds on to. Blanche concludes the afterword admitting that she failed in trying to turn her husband away from crime, also supporting the possibility of ex-convicts to live among society as honest