Perspective

Dave Pelzer has written an autobiography of his childhood. This childhood was filled with cruel events perpetrated on Dave by his mother in a fog of alcoholism and mental instability. Dave's perspective is that of the child who actually went through the events portrayed in this autobiography. These events include horrible beatings, starvation, and forced feedings of chemicals, such as ammonia. Dave was only four or five when these episodes of abuse began with time standing in a corner and escalating to time forced to stare at himself in a mirror. In short time, Dave became the victim of beatings, once resulting in the breaking of his arm. Soon after, Dave's mother began starving him intentionally and singling him out for cruel and unusual punishments, such as locking him in a room full of Clorox and ammonia fumes. All this abuse soon culminated in Dave's mother stabbing, an...