Childhood suffering quotes

How far does De Waal present Carol as responsible for Leon’s childhood suffering in My Name is Leon?  (plan)

• Carol is responsible to a mild extent  

• Leon’s 3^rd person narrative puts Carol on a pedestal because Leon loves his mother 

• Although when Carol shouts at Leon he feels the need to oblige her immediately – eg. Blocking out his natural bodily functions when Tony visits: “tr 

• Leon is loyal to Carol: “Leon shakes his head. “No I’m full” - Leon goes to the extent of lying and sacrificing his bodily needs, in order to attempt being reunited with Carol  

• --> Carol is still somewhat responsible because even Leon wants to take some money out of her purse when she doesn’t apologise to Leon for shouting at her 

• De Waal is presenting the failure of the care system to be far more responsible for causing Leon’s childhood suffering 

• Separating Leon from Jake 

• Separating Leon from his mother --> ultimately isolating Leon from his whole family 

• De Waal also presents racism to be far more responsible for causing Leon’s childhood suffering compared to Carol’s actions 

• Leon constantly feels disadvantaged and cannot understand why 

• --> Eg. He doesn’t understand why he wasn’t adopted with Jake  

How far does De Waal present Carol as responsible for Leon’s childhood suffering in My Name is Leon? (Thesis statement)

De Waal clearly presents Carol as being somewhat responsible for Leon’s childhood suffering to the reader despite Leon’s idealised concept of her, which ignores her personal short comings. However, De Waal further presents the combined forces of failure of the care system and racism to be far more responsible for Leon’s childhood suffering, as they are out of a child’s power and therefore cannot be changed, instead Leon has to endure them, without understanding why. 

As Carol proceeds to “leave Leon in charge”, he “has to look after Jake nearly every day”

• modal phrase “has to” suggests that Leon does not have a choice when it comes to determining his childhood obligations, because he has been forced into a roll of paternity when he should be profiting from the joys of childhood.

when Jake “wriggled so much that he fell on the carpet”, it made Leon feel “angry”

• Leon tries as hard as he can to install a sense of care for Jake but this comes at the cost of his childhood

• therefore the extreme domestic situation that Leon has to deal with, due to the absence of Carol’s maternal care, creates the impression on the reader that his conditions are unsurvivable, and physically overwhelming

As a result of Leon’s built up “anger”, Leon “stole some more coins” out of Carol’s purse

• the superlative “more” implies that Leon has done this multiple times, suggesting that Carol’s increasing absence of willing is proportional to Leon’s increasing illegal behaviour.

Carol is not to blame for Leon’s childhood suffering

• (However), later in the novel when De Waal reveals Carol’s diagnosis of postnatal depression, it creates the impression on the reader, that Carol is not entirely to blame for the majority of Leon’s childhood suffering, but instead the fault is of the care system in 1981 for not intervening in Leon’s domestic situation sooner.

• Here De Waal is intending that this is a result of the total lack of understand of mental health and illness diseases during the 80s, rather than the personal short comings of an individual. 

Instead Leon’s childhood suffering is at the fault of the Care system (for not intervening with Leon’s domestic situation sooner) and the products of the institutional racism in 1981 Britain.

• An example of De Waal presenting the failures of the care system and the effect of institutional racism being responsible for the vast majority of Leon’s childhood suffering, is when Leon’s social worker explains to him that Jake has been adopted but Leon has not due to racial tensions in 1981.

   

When the social worker says to Leon “Wouldn’t you like Jake to be in a family with a mum and dad of his own?”

• she uses persuasive language to take advantage of Leon’s long-term, developed paternal instincts towards Jake, in order to manipulate Leon to give Jake away.

• Here De Waal, demonstrates the idea that social workers in the 1980s did not understand the mental toll that sibling separation had on young children, emphasising the idea of (as De Waal says herself) “a care system that doesn’t care”.

In addition to this, the social worker also says to Leon “You’re not a little boy now, Leon. You’re nine.”

• (however) Leon is not nine years old, he is eight, therefore this reflects the social workers natural ability to be so dismissive of Leon’s childhood

• Here, De Waal criticises the impact of Margaret Thatcher's capitalist views in 1980s Britain by suggesting that compassion (even the care system) has been replaced by a more utilitarian approach as concepts of who and what society is, changed.

This is also supported by the fact that Leon’s social worker said, “We wish things were different but if Jake is going to have a chance...”

• The irony in “We wish things were different” portrays the stereotypical views of black or mixed-race individuals that surrounded society, because if Leon was white, he would have been adopted with Jake, and the social worker would not be having this conversation with Leon

• here De Waal may be ultimately reflecting that the social care system could attempt to shift the pre-determined views of mixed-race individuals, however it is down to society to abolish these conceptions

• the contradictory statement “but if Jake is going to have a chance...” implies that white children will always be prioritised in terms of adoption, in comparison to children who are segregated to a racial minority.

• The ellipsis also implies that the social worker does not think that Jake will be able to thrive if he is stuck with Leon, who the social worker knows, will struggle to get adopted due to his race. De Waal is intending that race should not be forced to interfere with sibling separation by the faults of the racial tension in society and the failures of care system.