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Effect of Environment in There Are No Children Here Essay

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Effect of Environment in There Are No Children Here In There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz, the way of life in Chicago's Henry Horner projects has a profound effect on all the residents who live there. The children become desensitized by the constant violence that they are forced to witness every day. Children are forced to walk home from school through the urban war zone of these housing projects. It is not unusual for the children to run home from school to avoid becoming casualties of the ongoing battle between rival gangs. The violence has affected Lafeyette and Pharaoh as much as anyone in the projects. The two children are affected by the environment in completely different ways. Pharaoh, the youngest, takes his …show more content…

Many times throughout the book Pharaoh is observed to be completely lost in thought. Sometimes it takes a few seconds for his mother to bring him back out of his dazed state (63). Pharaoh is only nine years old when Kotlowitz begins his book. Whenever any serious problems come up, he responds by saying, "I'm just too young to understand how life really is" (176). This statement illustrates the fact that Pharaoh is forced to use childlike responses to the everyday problems that exist in his life. Lafeyette, age 11, has responses to his environment that are exactly the opposite of Pharaoh's. While Pharaoh exhibits a more childlike response, Lafeyette responds much more like an adult. Lafeyette has a great sense of responsibility for his family, but he feels especially protective of his little brother. He never wants his brother to hang out with the wrong people. He makes sure that none of the other children pick on him due to his small size. Lafeyette objects very strongly to Pharaoh's friendship with a violent neighborhood teen named Rickey. After a time, he learns that Rickey also watches out for Pharaoh. This makes Lafeyette accept Rickey and also leads to his own eventual friendship with Rickey. Many people mention that Lafeyette's eyes always look worrisome. This gives him a look of a person that is much older. A contributing factor to this precocious maturity is that he lives in a single parent household. His mother

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