Psychological War

In the third essay of the semester, I will be throwing away everything I wrote on the first Stitches: A Memoir essay and clearing my mind of the dream aspect. If I must be honest, I am very grateful for this. Not only will I be able to write a completely different essay, I will also get a different and brand new perspective on David Small’s memoir. I believe this will help me get a fresh start with the new essay and open up my mind in understanding the memoir better. I will be able to do completely new research, focusing on a different topic. Instead of writing over the importance of dreams and how the narrator’s dreams were important in our understanding of his childhood, I will be focusing on the psychological effects of physical and verbal abuse and compare it to how the narrator in Small’s memoir turned out in the end.

The sources I have found are over children that were abused and the effects that resulted from the abuse. Two of the sources are videos; the videos talk about the different kinds of abuse there is (mostly focusing on physical, verbal, and emotional/ psychological abuse) and how the abuse can (and most likely will) be a large impact that will shape the child and his or her future. Two out of the three sources left are articles that focus more on a specific person and how the child was affected by the abuse. The last source is an electronic book that pretty much contains a little bit of everything: interviews of the abused children, children’s memories over their childhood life, and issues presented for child witnesses in court. (Although these sources are filled with helpful information, I want to see if I can find a few more sources in order to get different information and have a larger selection of sources from which I can choose from.)

The five sources I have found will be of great service in my research paper. I will be able to use the articles, videos, and e-book along with Small’s Stitches: A Memoir and create an essay that will hopefully be informative and well executed (or at least the best it can be). I will pull quotes (cited, of course) from the sources I have chosen and use them in order to best explain the proven psychological effects that can be seen in a person (especially in a child) after being physically, verbally, and/ or emotionally abused. Using the researched information, I will compare the average outcome of the abused and compare it to the outcome of Stitches: A Memoir and its main character. The point I really want to try and get across is that although most people who were abused at one point in their lives end up repeating the cycle- forming what is known as generational abuse- some people manage to take that awful experience and make it a positive transformation in their lives. The abuser is the hands; the abused is the clay. However, unlike pottery, the abused has the conscious decision whether or let they allow the hands (their terrible abusive past) to control their shape (their future.)