Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’neill

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is a very aggressive and Id dominant due to his abusive mother. Applying both of these lenses to this novel gives the reader a deeper understanding of the struggles baby has to go through in order to survive her undertaking of the coming of age.

The Marxist theory as stated previously has presented itself in the text on multiple occasions. The profound of these quotations was when Jules was in withdrawal from his substance abuse and the love and affection he uses to show (on occasion) disappeared and in came the bourgeoisie persona of Jules as the not so responsible adult. Out of blind rage and for no good reason Jules starts screaming at Baby for stopping him from burning a $5 bill, which is a big deal considering Jules was broke, while Baby’s friend was over, just to prove a point. Jules yelled as the Thanatos in him took over “You’re a lazy bitch. You try and talk to me like that to impress your friends. You want to look down on me! That’s not how I was fucking raised. I respected my parents. You disgust me.”(O’Neill, 99) Jules had more to say but it was merely more of him ranting in a crazy and disgusting manner. The sarcasm was very clear from the author but it showed as Jules being simply naive. But to be fair, he was a habitual heroin addict who accidentally got his high school girlfriend pregnant at the age of 14. The next quotation takes place when Theo, who is Baby’s “like-like” interest has a burst of anger and he feels the need to reveal the size of his ego when he bullies these kids by verbally abusing them and stopping them from drinking from a water fountain, “You are too ugly to drink this water. I don’t want your herpes. Go ask your mama to buy you some Coca-Cola in your life.” (O’Neill, 113). Theo obviously had zero authority over who drinks but he thinks that is he that important that no one else should drink from his water fountain. All the abuse he suffer’s from his mother, and all the emotions that come with it are displaced into the actions he takes on other people. This is the reason he was banned from the community centre where all the kids play, it is also why his only friend is Baby.