Childhood Innocence In David Alphonse's Baby

Although Baby starts off as an innocent child in the wrong place, the choices she makes throughout the novel lead to her premature transition into adulthood. The largest recurring theme of the novel is the demise of Baby's childhood innocence turning her from a normal pre-teenage girl into an abused, drug addicted, child prostitute. Many things led to Baby growing into the person she did, at home the only person she had was her father because he killed her mother in a car crash. He had anger issues that he took out on her and the only time she thought he was a good parent was when he was doing heroin. Also, she was always moving so she could never make deep relationships with anyone, and the places she moved to where always full of bad people …show more content…
He was a manipulation master he played tricks with Baby's young mind giving her a fake idea of what love is when he is really just using her “Do you ever notice how when you walk down the street everybody turns around and looks at you? That's because you’re the prettiest girl in the neighborhood”(213). Alphonse plays into her need for affection that she is missing out on and boosts her up so that she feels like he is the only one that makes her feel good, he does this because he can now make her do whatever he pleases as long as he makes her feel better being with him than she would feel without him. Which leads him to take advantage of that and make her do things that ruin a child's innocence. Alphonse was also abusive towards baby after he had “brainwashed” her into thinking that alphonse was the love of her life, he would get physica over the smallest things because in his mind there were no repercussions “He told me I was white trash and slapped me, which left an imprint of his hand on my face for three days” Being in this abusive relationship in some way tainted Babys view on relationships for the rest of her life, she will always imagine that being in a relationship with someone gives them the right to physically abuse them and that is a part of love, Also she will always be in fear of doing things that displease other people for the reason she might be hit because of it. Easily one of the biggest …show more content…
Babys innocence was stolen from her before she was able to establish who she was as a person on her own, having a view of who she was forced onto her by her father who could not care for her well enough on his own without Baby's mother, the fct that she was always moving so she could never make a name for herself where she lived for very long before she was gone again, her friends didn't support her and help mold her into the person she should have been, and also Alphonso abused her, manipulated her and forced her into prostitution when she was only 12. Many horrible things happened to Baby that no one especially a child should have to go through, but going through these things baby could go on in her life to persevere through anything and help the world greatly given what she had been through