ISP Blog Post 5- Lullabies for Little Criminals

There are many Archetypes within this novel. For example, Baby is the child/innocent archetype. The child archetype is usually dependent on others for support and guidance. Baby looks to the adults in her life for help however she never gets any. She doesn’t have any proper support systems therefore she has to learn to take care of herself at a very young age. Mary, Isabel, and Janine are all Mother/caregiver archetypes in this story. Each one of these women made an impression on Baby. Baby desperately wanted a mother figure in her life. She needed a person to show affection towards her and do simple “mother things” such as making her meals and getting her ready for school. At the end of the novel Jules decided that it would be best for Baby to go live with his cousin Janine for a while. Baby described the moment when she first saw Janine and said, “Then Janine stepped over and squeezed me hard. I could feel my heart beating when she hugged me against her, but now it felt fine.” (O’Neill, 330). Baby immediately felt comfortable with this woman. Considering the book ended after Baby moved to Janine’s house I assume that was the “happy ending” and this is the kind of home that Baby has been waiting for. She finally got her mother figure and was still able to keep her connection to Jules because she moved in with a family member as opposed to foster care. A mother and a child are two very common archetypes. The way they act in a novel is typically dependent on whether or not the two have a good relationship. A mother without a child or a child without a mother usually creates an issue. And you need conflict in order to write a good novel. A third archetype in this novel is The Ruler. I would say that Jules is a good example of this archetype. As the novel progressed he became more and more cruel and controlling. Every time he believed that Baby was doing anything even remotely wrong he would get very angry. He didn’t want to be made a fool of in anyway and he wanted to keep his power. This caused his and Baby’s relationship to deteriorate. It was hard for them to be close when they thought so poorly of each other and couldn’t get along. There are more archetypes that were displayed in this novel (and more characters that fall under the archetypal categories that I mentioned here) however I believe the ones I mentioned were the most important. This story had a lot of conflict and a lot of that conflict was created from poor communication, family dynamics, and power imbalances. The archetypes help me relate these characters to ones that I have read about in previous stories. Over all I really enjoyed this book despite some of the upsetting content. The book was very interesting and well written.