Bastard out of Carolina, Summary 155-309

  Having to deal with a young child when you are one yourself is a different situation and having to do it all on your own is even harder. However, at the age of 17, Anney got married and soon after he past away leaving her with now two daughter to support. Through her brother Anney meet this you guy that's goes by the name of Glen Waddell.
  Glen is the type of man that will make promises to love and take care of everything in the household and women tend to love it when they are told so, especially if they are a single parent. Two years later, they get marry. Glen begins to show his true colors and who he really is, a failure; he cannot hold a job and he keeps drinking non-stop. He is filled with rage against his own family, and he takes out his frustrations and anger on Bone. He first sexually abuses her less than a year after they are married; masturbating against her.
  With no job leading to no money the family if forced to moves constantly, and Bone and Reese are always hungry. At one moment Anney prostituted herself to get money to buy her children food.
  When Bone is ten, Glen starts viciously beating her. He puts aside several belts just to do so. Anney being a witness to this gets angry at Glen but forgives him and does nothing about the situation. Bone comes realizes that she must be careful around Glen and try not to get him angry even though she doesn't do anything, just the sliest things that's she would say or do would piss him off. At one time Bone was beaten so badly she was sent to the hospital and a employee stated that there was child abuse going on in there home. Anney begs Bone to "be more careful" around Glen.
  The moment when Anney realizes that she has to stick up for her daughter and get rid of Glen was when Bone had moved in with her aunts and Glen had came over looking for her and played it off as if he was looking for her mother and then took her into the room and began to rape her, but little did he know that Anney wasn't that far away and she caught him. Even though she didn't want to believe it and loved him so much she came to realize her children were more of and importance to her than some man.

QUOTE:"I lived in a world of shame. I hid my bruises as if they were evidence of crimes I had committed. I didn't tell Mama. I couldn't tell Mama." (Allison 123)

REACTION: There are so many children out there that are going through these same problems and don't know what to do. They always seem to blame themselves in situations as such and never want to speak up about it. Why should they feel this way? Its not fair to have someone go through so much pain at such a young age and they don't have n idea of whats taking place. An to know this is happening all over the world amazes me so much.
How can a "man" do such things to such a young child? What goes through someones mind when they are doing such things?

Bastard out of Carolina, Summary 1-155

TITLE: Bastard Out Of Carolina    
AUTHOR: Dorothy Allison
     The narrator is a 10 year old girl, named Bone, who faces many consequences because of the actions of her mothers decisions upon who she decides to be in a relationship with. 
     Anney was a teen mother, age 15. There was and accident that caused her to be rushed into labor after she was flown out the window of a car. In Carolina at this time a child was considered certified or uncertified. If they were uncertified they were called Bastards, or child who didn’t have a father. When Anney got into the car accident she was left in a coma for 3 days. Her aunts were in charged of handling the birth certificate of the narrator, Bone. Months before the birth of Bone, her grand-mother ran off Bone’s father in rage. The aunts could not determine how they should spell the childs name. Even they couldn’t even think of how to spell the fathers name. On page three, the author explains the importance of having a fathers name on the birth certificate. When Bone’s aunts scribbled anything as the fathers name, the hospital certified Bone as a bastard by the state of South Carolina. Anney was upset by this. She had wished that she was awake to name her child herself. Anney was convinced that she could have bluffed her way through her labor, they don’t ask for a marriage license before they put you up on the table. She thought she could lie her way into getting her baby to be certified. Anney set out many times to the Greenville courthouse. She had tried to get the courthouse to get Bone to be certified. In all the attempts Anney was turned down, and taken as a joke by the courthouse. They expected her to go to the courthouse every so often to get the same results. Anney became furious with the courthouse and had given up. She had tried to forget about the situation, but the people surrounding her hadn't.


Quote: "The day I was born started off bad and only got worse. I guess I was lucky I got born at all." (Allison 4)


One of the most interesting things I learned so far from reading this book is how babies are classified when they are born. how is it possible that the hospital has the right to declare a child as illegitimate, a bastard, or uncertified if for some reason they don’t believe there is a father in the childs life. And as simple as a man’s presence during the birth of a child, they are declared certified.


Questions: What type of person was Bones father? Why was he hated so much?

Summarizing 180-END

Getting out of riker's was something that Carroll was looking forward to. However his life seems to be going down hill since the day he came out; Hes even starting to think of himself as a junkie an just getting more involved in drugs and alcohol; Noones there for him, his friends seem to be on their own things and he's just stuck behind not knowing what to do with himself. Instead of turning his life over and trying to make himself into sething such as a basketball player, he just thinks about ways to spend his money on crack. His life story as a teenager seems to he as a fairytale and it's hard to believe it was even true.

Whatkind of life is he living now? Where is his mother and father? They were never mentioned in his diary. Did someone influence him to change? Did he ever recover from being a junkie just at the age of 15?

Quote: "What nice concepts is it having a godmother and godfather."

What Is the point of having godparents? Something that I always wondered myself. Being locked up has you thinking of all sorts of things that never make sense to you on the outside. Did he ever get the chance to get to know his godparents? Where they any help to him?

This book seems to leave you very clueless at the end. It doesn't seem to make any sense anymore. I want to know where he left off. It makes me want to read more and get more involved with the character.