Roy Anthony Case Study

were visiting their mother, Maddy fearing what would happen next and grumbling why Momma left them she said, “She had left me and the boys alone with Daddy. And it was clear now that he had become, perhaps always had been, someone who would turn mean and violent” (Boudreaux 63). Culpepper was drunk and he physically attacked Roy Anthony the second time, and had it not been for Maddy’s immediate intervention it would have been worse for Roy Anthony. Maddy remembered that “when Daddy started to move closer to Roy Anthony, I ran between them. Daddy’s whiskey- tainted breath grazed the back of my head and his anger radiated hotly, making me aware that nothing stood between me and the violence I had seen in him in the hospital parking lot”( 87).

When Maddy found her younger sibling June Bug messing with matches in the bathroom she complained that, “I hated having to be on guard all the time to keep everybody safe. I didn 't want to be June Bug’s trainer. It wasn 't supposed to be my job to teach him right from wrong. That was Momma’s job. That was Daddy’s job. It wasn 't fair that I was stuck doing it” (173). Because of Mr. Culpepper drinking problem and failure to carry out his responsibility as a father or in short because of his neglect, Maddy was forced to fill the gap and help keep the family together by doing all the house work and taking care of her siblings. Although it wasn’t enough to keep them out of

As can be seen Culpepper’s failure to bring home groceries and pay his children 's school lunch prompted the government to step in and provide food. However, the commodities Maddy and Roy Anthony picked every month from the government wasn’t enough. Consequently, Maddy and Roy Anthony started scavenging in the dumpster of a small grocery store they passed on their way to and from school (Boudreaux 171). Maddy said, “Sometimes under the cover of darkness I locked Earl and June Bug in the house, and Roy Anthony and I sneaked to the alley and searched blindly through the garbage cans, ignoring the scent of bad meat and overripe fruit and vegetables to haul home any items we thought might be edible” ( 172). This act of scavenging indicates Maddy’s desperation for food security and how far Culpepper abandoned his