Penggabungan masa kecil tidak hanya penganiayaan berat oleh ibunya,namun sikap apatis jelas untuk penderitaannya oleh ayahnya, Pelzermenderita salah satu kasus yang paling parah didokumentasikan kekerasan terhadap anak dalam sejarah California.
Plot
The book starts with a pathetically normal day washing the dishes. If Dave does not finish the dishes he will not be fed. He takes his hand out of the dish water and is slapped hard against the counter top when his mother catches him. He finishes the dishes and as his reward he is left to eat his brother's left overs from breakfast. He was late for school, like normal, and Dave would run to school in order to make sure that he had time to steal food from fellow children's lunch boxes. His mother drove him to school that day (normally she wouldn't have) and he had no time to steal food.
He would steal food from the kids' lunch boxes and gobble down whatever he could in just a short amount of time, just because he was rarely fed. When the children started to notice that some of their food was missing, Dave was caught and the teachers called his mother, not knowing the effect that would have. At this point he began to be punished severely, made to do extra chores, and was banned from family activities. His mother would make him vomit at the end of the school day to make sure he hadn't stolen. If there was food in his vomit, he was then made to eat it up.
The frequency of the beatings increased and they now occurred when his father was present. That summer he was excluded in a family vacation. At first Dave's father tried to stop the abuse but as time went on felt unable to intervene. His mother would never exclude his other siblings, who were treated well and never punished as severely as Dave.
The next year abuse intensified and he was no longer allowed to eat meals with the family. Dave was in charge of all the chores in the house while his siblings had few responsibilities. That Christmas, Dave's mother showed him a letter she claimed that came from North Pole. It stated that Dave was a "bad boy" and would get no toys for Christmas. A few months later, his mother attempted to burn Dave on a stove. Abuse increased even more after that.
By the time he was in second grade, his mother began to make him go without food for extended periods of time. David was forced to sleep in the basement in a army cot with no blankets. He got an average of half a meal a day. When David was 10, she stabbed him in the stomach and did not take him to the hospital. The wound eventually became infected and he was forced to squeeze pus out of it himself. By this point he was no longer considered part of the family and lived in the basement; he was denied basic contact, play, and food. His mother stated that she did not want Dave to interact with "her family." At this point his mother had become horrifyingly psychotic and in her eyes, evil.
Over time the depth of the abuse worsened. David claimed he was forced to sit in the "prisoner of war" position (head bent backwards facing the sky, sitting on his hands). His mother stopped using his name and began referring to him first as "The Boy" and finally "It". The punishments are reported to have evolved into "sick games" in which she made her son suffer. His little brother becomes his mother's 'Little Nazi', who, brainwashed by the woman, enjoys watching Dave suffer.
Incidents cited in the book include forcing ammonia down his throat, sitting in a sealed bathroom while inhaling the fumes from a bucket of ammonia mixed with bleach (Gas Chamber), inducing vomiting followed by forced ingestion, smashing his face against a mirror while forcing him to say "I'm a bad boy", lying in the bathtub naked with freezing water for hours, then made him sit in the shade while sunlight was just out of reach, rubbing his face in his baby brother's soiled diaper, trying to make him eat his youngest brother's feces, as well as starvation and general malnutrition, and accidentally stabbing him with a knife when he didn't meet the time limit to do the dishes. Dave's mother also attempted to force him to lie on a gas stove, saying, "Now sit on the stove so I can watch you burn and die." Although she only held his arm over the flame.
In each of the sequels, the author reveals more forms of torture he did not describe in this book (e.g., his mother hitting his neck with a broom handle, causing his neck to swell so that he was unable to breathe). Overall, Dave Pelzer was brutally beaten by his mother Catherine Pelzer.
Controversy
Pelzer's younger brother, Stephen Pelzer, is quoted as saying, "David wasn't at all ostracized from the family; he was very close to me and Richard. We were the Three Musketeers. David would make up lies, to receive some attention. But David had to be the center of attention. He was a hyper, over happy spoiled brat." Adding to the controversy, "his grandmother, Ruth Cole (born in 1910) remembers him as a 'disruptive kid', only interested in Adrian Fortiz, with big ideas of imagination and comfort.'"
Supporting Pelzer's story is schoolteacher Athena Konstan of Salt Lake City, who wrote, "In my 31 years of teaching, David Pelzer was the most severely abused child I have ever known." His brother Richard Pelzer, who wrote the book A Brother's Journey, argues that there was abuse in the family but disputes many of David's claims and questions his ethics and marketing tactics.
Pelzer's website claims the book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; however, according to a recent Guardian profile, it was merely submitted to the prize board, a process open to any work of literature. It can therefore be considered a submission but not a nominee.
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