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Little Boy Blue (novel)
Encyclopedia
Little Boy Blue is a 1981 semi-autobiographical
novel by Edward Bunker
that follows his journey into crime
and deviance
. The main character in the book is named Alex Hammond.
. His father Clem Hammond is a carpenter and has been struggling to find a job ever since the Great Depression hit the US. His parents are separated and he is very close with his father. However, Clem does not have the resources to support Alex. As a result, he attempts to have outside intervention in supporting Alex such as enrolling him into military school and placing him into foster homes. Alex has run way from all of these places and exhibits temper tantrum
s because he does not want to be away from his father. His bursts of rage cause authorities and fellow inmates in various institutions to believe that he is crazy
, specifically displaying the early traits of psychopathy
, such as what is deemed to be "criminal versatility".
The story starts out in 1943, with Alex, Clem, and a social worker going from LA to the Valley Home For Boys in San Fernando Valley
where Alex will live. However, he meets up with trouble there because one of his roommates Sammy decides to shoplift from a store. Even though Alex does not steal anything, the housemother Thelma Cavendish decides to punish him. This unfair act in the eyes of Alex causes him to attack her and he rips her dress. He decides to run away with Sammy.
They decide to burglarize
a shop during the night, but the owners investigate as the boys are inside. Alex shoots one of them with a pistol that he had found when they broke in. Alex runs away, but he gets caught very soon. The police beat him and humiliate him. He finds out that his father died in a tragic accident while trying to find him.
Alex goes to Juvenile Hall
. There, he first sees the brutal violence that is so typical of a prison and other institutions. He quickly learns about the usefulness of such violence and how it can protect him from various injustices. It is also here that he learns about racial identity and racism
. His love for reading and his high intelligence sets him apart from the other juvenile delinquents.
He is sent to Camarillo
, a state mental institution
to determine whether or not he is insane. There, he meets First Choice Floyd and Red Barzo who are two black heroin addicts. They teach him how to play poker
and how to box
. He also starts to masturbate
. Eventually, Alex meets an older teen called Scabs. They regularly sneak out of the institution. One day, Scabs teaches Alex how to hot-wire a car, and they leave. Alex is not able to go back to the institution so he decides to stay in the city. It is not long before the authorities find him and they send him to Pacific Colony.
Alex regards the new institution as a lot worse than Camarillo. One night, one of the members of the staff nicknamed “The Jabber” beats Alex for a minor infraction that he did not commit. He fights back in self defense, and hurts the Jabber. He gets into trouble again and gets sent back to Juvenile Hall before going to another juvenile institution at Whittier
. He gets into one more fight.
At Whittier, Alex gets into more conflicts and he fights so that no one would regard him as a “punk.” (In other words, an inmate who gets sodomized
) He finally decides to escape with a friend named Joe Altabella (also credited as "JoJo").
They escape successfully, to where they hide out with the rest of JoJo's family (primarily Italian-Americans), and Alex meets JoJo’s sister Teresa as well as their younger sister Lisa, the latter of whom seems to hold most affection for Alex over time. At this point in the novel, Alex is 13 and he starts to have sexual feelings for her as well as other girls. Soon, Alex meets Teresa’s 17 year old boyfriend Wedo and the two boys begin to like each other. However, JoJo and Alex eventually get caught, both at separate instances. This time, Alex gets sent to Preston, an even stricter institution.
At Preston, an older boy, Kennedy, cons Alex out of his shoes. Out of great anger, Alex unscrews a fire hose nozzle and attacks him with it, almost killing him. Alex is unrepentant in the face of authorities. One of them wants to send Alex to San Quentin State Prison
, but he is too young at the age of 13 so he is put into solitary confinement
. He actually prefers this because he can be away from the violence and he can read in peace. Eventually, he serves his time and gets released into the custody of his aunt and her husband. Alex finds them to be quite hospitable and he helps them by working at their cafe.
However, after having walked out one day, this superficially placid exterior is shattered by the unjustly great indignance towards his lengthy absence from both relatives, his uncle threatening to attack him. Recalling prior attacks upon him ala "The Jabber", Alex threatens to kill them if they dare to attack him. He runs away and finds Wedo again. The older teen has become a heroin addict and must commit robbery
in order to support his drug habit. The two youths begin to rob drugstores, taking the money and selling the drugs. One night, they attempt to rob a store, but the owners shoot Wedo with a shotgun. Alex gets hit, in a literary reprise of the event that brought him into the prison system to begin with, and he gives up. The novel ends with him drifting into unconsciousness, surrounded by the police as he is about to be taken to a hospital.
since many of the events in the book demonstrate how a criminal will behave under certain conditions. This book is critical of the different authorities who mete out punishments for crimes. Alex has problems with different authorities because he sees these authorities and the institution
s they represent as ultimately unfair and biased. Therefore, the book is most closely linked to the symbolic interactionist
school of sociological
thought.
The idea of anomie
is also expressed in the way that Alex acts as a result of various conditions that he strives for but cannot attain. For example, near the beginning of the novel Alex only wants to be able to live with his father, but this is not possible because his father cannot afford to support him. Therefore, Alex engages in various deviant behaviors such as running away from the places where he is kept.
Labeling theory
can also be used to explain Alex's behavior. He is treated and labeled as a criminal and as a mentally feeble individual due to his willingness to participate in violence, even though he is a very intelligent boy and he does enjoy learning (contrary to the behavior of the other juvenile delinquents). This continuous labeling causes him to take on deviant behavior as his own, and this causes him to not be able to function in the normal society. Therefore, it is apparent proof that society is indeed greatly responsible for much of its considered "undesirables", through pegging individuals by amplifying their supposed problems and having a collective expectation of them to follow through it
.
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
novel by Edward Bunker
Edward Bunker
Edward Heward Bunker was an American author of crime fiction, a screenwriter, and an actor. He wrote numerous books, some of which have been adapted into films....
that follows his journey into crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
and deviance
Deviance
Deviance can refer to:*Deviance *Deviance...
. The main character in the book is named Alex Hammond.
Plot summary
Alex Hammond is an 11 year old boy living in Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. His father Clem Hammond is a carpenter and has been struggling to find a job ever since the Great Depression hit the US. His parents are separated and he is very close with his father. However, Clem does not have the resources to support Alex. As a result, he attempts to have outside intervention in supporting Alex such as enrolling him into military school and placing him into foster homes. Alex has run way from all of these places and exhibits temper tantrum
Tantrum
A tantrum is an emotional outburst, usually associated with children or those in emotional distress, that is typically characterized by stubbornness, crying, screaming, yelling, shrieking, defiance, angry ranting, a resistance to attempts at pacification and, in some cases, violence...
s because he does not want to be away from his father. His bursts of rage cause authorities and fellow inmates in various institutions to believe that he is crazy
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
, specifically displaying the early traits of psychopathy
Psychopathy
Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...
, such as what is deemed to be "criminal versatility".
The story starts out in 1943, with Alex, Clem, and a social worker going from LA to the Valley Home For Boys in San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
where Alex will live. However, he meets up with trouble there because one of his roommates Sammy decides to shoplift from a store. Even though Alex does not steal anything, the housemother Thelma Cavendish decides to punish him. This unfair act in the eyes of Alex causes him to attack her and he rips her dress. He decides to run away with Sammy.
They decide to burglarize
Burglary
Burglary is a crime, the essence of which is illicit entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offense. Usually that offense will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary...
a shop during the night, but the owners investigate as the boys are inside. Alex shoots one of them with a pistol that he had found when they broke in. Alex runs away, but he gets caught very soon. The police beat him and humiliate him. He finds out that his father died in a tragic accident while trying to find him.
Alex goes to Juvenile Hall
Youth detention center
A youth detention center, also known as a juvenile detention center , juvenile hall or, more colloquially as juvie, is a secure residential facility for young people, often termed juvenile delinquents, awaiting court hearings and/or placement in long-term care facilities and programs...
. There, he first sees the brutal violence that is so typical of a prison and other institutions. He quickly learns about the usefulness of such violence and how it can protect him from various injustices. It is also here that he learns about racial identity and racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
. His love for reading and his high intelligence sets him apart from the other juvenile delinquents.
He is sent to Camarillo
Camarillo, California
Camarillo is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. The population was 65,201 at the 2010 census, up from 57,084 at the 2000 census. The Ventura Freeway Camarillo is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. The population was 65,201 at the 2010 census, up from 57,084 at...
, a state mental institution
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
to determine whether or not he is insane. There, he meets First Choice Floyd and Red Barzo who are two black heroin addicts. They teach him how to play poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
and how to box
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
. He also starts to masturbate
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
. Eventually, Alex meets an older teen called Scabs. They regularly sneak out of the institution. One day, Scabs teaches Alex how to hot-wire a car, and they leave. Alex is not able to go back to the institution so he decides to stay in the city. It is not long before the authorities find him and they send him to Pacific Colony.
Alex regards the new institution as a lot worse than Camarillo. One night, one of the members of the staff nicknamed “The Jabber” beats Alex for a minor infraction that he did not commit. He fights back in self defense, and hurts the Jabber. He gets into trouble again and gets sent back to Juvenile Hall before going to another juvenile institution at Whittier
Whittier, California
Whittier is a city in Los Angeles County, California about southeast of Los Angeles. The city had a population of 85,331 at the 2010 census, up from 83,680 as of the 2000 census, and encompasses 14.7 square miles . Like nearby Montebello, the city constitutes part of the Gateway Cities...
. He gets into one more fight.
At Whittier, Alex gets into more conflicts and he fights so that no one would regard him as a “punk.” (In other words, an inmate who gets sodomized
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
) He finally decides to escape with a friend named Joe Altabella (also credited as "JoJo").
They escape successfully, to where they hide out with the rest of JoJo's family (primarily Italian-Americans), and Alex meets JoJo’s sister Teresa as well as their younger sister Lisa, the latter of whom seems to hold most affection for Alex over time. At this point in the novel, Alex is 13 and he starts to have sexual feelings for her as well as other girls. Soon, Alex meets Teresa’s 17 year old boyfriend Wedo and the two boys begin to like each other. However, JoJo and Alex eventually get caught, both at separate instances. This time, Alex gets sent to Preston, an even stricter institution.
At Preston, an older boy, Kennedy, cons Alex out of his shoes. Out of great anger, Alex unscrews a fire hose nozzle and attacks him with it, almost killing him. Alex is unrepentant in the face of authorities. One of them wants to send Alex to San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin State Prison is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men in unincorporated San Quentin, Marin County, California, United States. Opened in July 1852, it is the oldest prison in the state. California's only death row for male inmates, the largest...
, but he is too young at the age of 13 so he is put into solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
. He actually prefers this because he can be away from the violence and he can read in peace. Eventually, he serves his time and gets released into the custody of his aunt and her husband. Alex finds them to be quite hospitable and he helps them by working at their cafe.
However, after having walked out one day, this superficially placid exterior is shattered by the unjustly great indignance towards his lengthy absence from both relatives, his uncle threatening to attack him. Recalling prior attacks upon him ala "The Jabber", Alex threatens to kill them if they dare to attack him. He runs away and finds Wedo again. The older teen has become a heroin addict and must commit robbery
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
in order to support his drug habit. The two youths begin to rob drugstores, taking the money and selling the drugs. One night, they attempt to rob a store, but the owners shoot Wedo with a shotgun. Alex gets hit, in a literary reprise of the event that brought him into the prison system to begin with, and he gives up. The novel ends with him drifting into unconsciousness, surrounded by the police as he is about to be taken to a hospital.
Themes
This book is an example for many aspects of the study of criminologyCriminology
Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society...
since many of the events in the book demonstrate how a criminal will behave under certain conditions. This book is critical of the different authorities who mete out punishments for crimes. Alex has problems with different authorities because he sees these authorities and the institution
Institution
An institution is any structure or mechanism of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community...
s they represent as ultimately unfair and biased. Therefore, the book is most closely linked to the symbolic interactionist
Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic Interaction, also known as interactionism, is a sociological theory that places emphasis on micro-scale social interaction to provide subjective meaning in human behavior, the social process and pragmatism.-History:...
school of sociological
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
thought.
The idea of anomie
Anomie
Anomie is a term meaning "without Law" to describe a lack of social norms; "normlessness". It describes the breakdown of social bonds between an individual and their community ties, with fragmentation of social identity and rejection of self-regulatory values. It was popularized by French...
is also expressed in the way that Alex acts as a result of various conditions that he strives for but cannot attain. For example, near the beginning of the novel Alex only wants to be able to live with his father, but this is not possible because his father cannot afford to support him. Therefore, Alex engages in various deviant behaviors such as running away from the places where he is kept.
Labeling theory
Labeling theory
Labeling theory is closely related to interactionist and social construction theories. Labeling theory was developed by sociologists during the 1960's. Howard Saul Becker's book entitled Outsiders was extremely influential in the development of this theory and its rise to popularity...
can also be used to explain Alex's behavior. He is treated and labeled as a criminal and as a mentally feeble individual due to his willingness to participate in violence, even though he is a very intelligent boy and he does enjoy learning (contrary to the behavior of the other juvenile delinquents). This continuous labeling causes him to take on deviant behavior as his own, and this causes him to not be able to function in the normal society. Therefore, it is apparent proof that society is indeed greatly responsible for much of its considered "undesirables", through pegging individuals by amplifying their supposed problems and having a collective expectation of them to follow through it
Fatalism
Fatalism is a philosophical doctrine emphasizing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate.Fatalism generally refers to several of the following ideas:...
.