Pain Pleasure Mouse example essay topic

'Suffering is an essential element of childhood experiences; without it a child could not learn and grow' Does literature you study support this statement?' Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it'. This literal and realistic statement said by one who has known suffering and has dealt with it. Helen Keller experienced a traumatic time as a child; being deaf and blind, she knew suffering but also knew that it is possible for it to be conquered and forgot. She suffered in this way as a child and her adult life was a good one because of this suffering. The most important element in any child's life is to learn and grow.

Does experiencing anguish and misery enable a child to flourish, consequently becoming a nurtured adult? Angela's Ashes, a memoir of a childhood set in Limerick, Ireland, demonstrates Frank McCourt's suffering and distress throughout his young life. The novel tells of how the McCourt family lives and grows in poverty stricken Ireland. The conditions in which they live are appalling; rats infest and hygiene is not a common thing. This causes plenty of disease and as a result, kills most of Frank McCourts family.

A section in the novel which expresses their family's suffering is when Franks sister, Margaret, his parents' joy is taken ill. 'But when Margaret cries, there is a high lonely feeling in the air and Dad is out of bed in a second, holding her to him. ' Frank goes on to say 'When he passes the window where the streetlight shines in, you can see the tears on his cheeks and that's strange because he never cries for anyone unless he has the drink taken from him'. This is illustrating a very emotional scene but as the child is watching, due to his age and immaturity, he fails to realise his father is grieving through Margaret's pain. This is a original way to show a child's suffering through a novel as the reader is seeing the misery through the child's eyes, but the pain being felt is by his father. An interesting aspect of the writing in Angela's Ashes is how McCourt composes the text, from McCourts interpretation of the situation at the young age he was at the time.

The spelling and grammar also indicates that the child is writing, not the adult, 'It's a long way to the Dock Road but we don't mind because our bellies are filled with sausages and bread and it's not raining'. This biography can partly support the original statement, as McCourt doesn't fully understand the experiences he is going through when he is at a young age, but he will reflect on them as shaping experiences as he ages. He has seen how adults react to different things and when he is older, he will value what he saw when young because he will know and understand why his elders did what they did. Suffering is a recurring theme in Angela's Ashes. 'Mam's teeth are so bad she has to go to Barrington's Hospital to have them all pulled out' and 'The lane needs more lavatories' are quotes tracing the developing disease and squalid conditions.

McCourt has experienced this poor quality of life and as an adult will perhaps to accept the essentials without vain as he knows and understands what poverty and suffering really is. This is an example of a suffering childhood in Ireland at the early part of this century. The meaning of distress to another child in a separate place could mean the same. Pleasure Mouse, a little girl is growing up in 13th century China. A family in China is slowly congregating together to witness the binding of their youngest girl's feet. Pleasure Mouse spends the time in this short story by Emily Prager visiting her many friends desperately trying to discover the big secret behind the foot binding.

The Visit From the Foot binder is a empathetic short story written about Pleasure Mouse, the little girl of five, who is unaware of the great suffering she is about to undertake when getting her feet bound. There is a definite contrast between the older ladies and young Pleasure Mouse as the language used to describe the movements between the two are very different. Pleasure Mouse often runs, scampered, dashed and leaped up and down. She is full of action and energy whereas the older women scurried, toddled and shuffled. Their movements are restricted and slower than that of Pleasure Mouse.

The reader knows that the foot binding that has affected the older women and the writer using such vitality to describe Pleasure Mouse. That makes the contrast between before she gets her feet bound and after very high, causing the reader to have sympathy for 'perky' Pleasure Mouse. She asks her thirteen year old sister, Tiger Mouse, 'Will it hurt? What will they look like afterwards? Please tell me.

' Moreover, her sister has an element of spite in her, as she doesn't reply. She knows what Pleasure Mouse is going to suffer but she feels angry that no one permitted her to know what she was going to feel when it was her turn. 'Why should I tell you what no one told me?' This text allows there to be conflict between the elders, which means the original statement can be partly supported. Pleasure Mouse's close friend Honey Tongue is very assuring and tells Pleasure Mouse that the foot binding will be the best thing to happen to her. 'The pain goes away and then you have a weapon that you never dreamed of. ' Honey Tongue is promising Pleasure Mouse that the suffering will be worth the pain and when she is an adult, she will be thankful she has tiny feet.

The suffering she must endure as a child will provide experience for her and she can grow into a beautiful young woman. In China at this time a young ladies priority, in a high social class like this, was to find a noble man to wed. With the pain Pleasure Mouse has endured, she has now achieved full potential for fulfilling her adult life. Pleasure Mouse suffered actual physical pain in one section of her life from which her mental anguish about the experience will not be recovered. She will never feel the same again as she did when young; the foot binding has ruined her life.

Never again from now on can she run, skip, and leap around. Frank McCourt, on the other hand, was living in poverty and suffering for most of his life, it is not been a painful experience for one short part. Like Pleasure Mouse, Jane Eyre had an experience in her early years, which would effect the way she lived her future life. Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte, traces the development in Jane's life as she flourishes from a bullied frail child into a bright elegant young lady. One specific point in her life she recalls as an 'unjust punishment' causing her great mental stress and anguish.

The incident she experiences in the red room, caused by her imagination, makes her feel as if she is being tortured. Jane is locked away in her uncle's bedroom (used before he passed on) as punishment for her behaviour ag.