The second half of Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill focuses on the downfall of Baby’s life. She finds a friend in a local boy Theo, but soon realizes he’s a horrible influence on her. After losing her only “friend”, a man by the name of Alphonse takes interesting in Baby, comforting her in a time of need. Baby is quick to trust him and the two get close, too close. Alphonse makes Baby a prostitute.
In this section of the novel it is obvious there’s something missing, the Great Mother. As Baby has mentioned before, her mother died when she young age and has little to no memory of her other than what her father has told her; but she’s not even sure if what he’s saying is the truth. She’s constantly looking for that mother figure and craves the attention that they give. See found this temporarily in Isabell, her foster mom , Theo’s mother as well as the Russian landlady. Her exchanges with these women always ended in her feeling guilty, as if she was cheating on her own mother in a way.
O’Niell, 163
“ I was always kind of smitten by woman. Probably because I’ve never had a mother.”
It might sound odd since he’s a pimp, I feel like the reason Baby was so quick to trust Alphonse was because he was the only one at the time giving her comfort and advice when the rest of the world seemed like it was going against her. He even offered her a place to stay when it was too hard to go back home. But of course, he didn’t stay this loving archetype for long. He abused the trust Baby had given him and began using her in a sexual way for himself and other but Baby went along with it.
For Baby, thank the archetype the fits are the best is the explorer. Explorers desire is to find out who they are exploring the world. In the story I see Baby doing this quite often. She usually tries things without thinking it through first like when she and Theo broke into old friends house and destroyed almost everything inside. I’m having trouble finding the quote but I believe there’s a part where she mentions she had no idea what she was getting herself into but went along with Theo. When you think about it, this is also a characteristic of a drug user, like her father too.
I feel like Baby’s baby doll, the one that her mother gave her as a child symbolizes something important. After Jules destroys it, Baby begins a downward spiral into drugs and prostitution. I can’t help but feel like the doll symbolized Baby’s childhood and the destruction of it was the start of a new chapter. Even though Jules fixed the doll, Baby didn’t care anymore. Just like how she didn’t care what she was doing anymore.
Due to Baby’s explorer nature, I can still see her continuing down this rabbit hole of sex and drugs until she’s stopped by someone like her father.
Work Cited
O’Neil, Heather. Lullabies for Little Criminals. 1st ed., Harper Perennial, 2006. Print.
Hunter's English Blog 