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Society's Child

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The Autobiography by Janes Ian

”One of these days I’m gonna raise my glittering wings and fly” Janis Ian knew, that her song was special, she wouldn’t back down, because of a few people, chanting something at her. She wants to finish this job, and she wont let her real fans - and everybody standing behind her - down. Janis Ian was born in 1951 and is an American folksinger and writer. She published her autobiography named after her song Society’s Child - My Autobiography in 2009. We get to know one of her complications in her early career as a fifteen-year-old folksinger.

In this extract of Janis Ian’s autobiography we get to know one of her problems, which she goes through in Encino, California. She’s on a stage where she is half through her song Society’s Child, which is a song about her black lover “Face is clean and shining black as night”. But as she sings her song, some of her audience begins to yell at her “Nigger Lover! Nigger Lover” and because of this, she begins to cry and runs away from the scene. She then goes to the bathroom and cries even more. While she’s in there, she makes many thoughts about why she shouldn’t get back on the stage. “I can’t go back out there. I can’t. What if somebody takes a shot at me?” After that she gathers her courage to get back on the stage, because of her thoughts about how her family raised her. And realised that she has real fans.
“I don’t want to disappoint the real fans out there. And there must be real fans out there!” She then gets back on the stage, and starts to sing her song Society’s Child and completes the song, and goes on to complete the show. This also shows that the story is written in a chronological order, as it starts from her getting off the stage because of some chants from the audience, and her getting back on to the stage, and continuing the show.

The reason that people got mad at Janis Ian is because she sang about the love between her and her black lover, which was unacceptable back in the 1960’s. And black parents wouldn’t let their children date a white, and white parents wouldn’t let their children date a black.
The narration is done by a first person narrator which can be seen many places, by words as “My, I and mine” “’Well…’ I lifted my head to meet his eyes and took a deep breath”. “Yes that was my head to …” . These quotes show the reader that a first person narrator does the narration; Janis Ian does the narration, because it’s her autobiography. She tells about how her parents told her not to be someone scared of the world, but to be somebody that’s a hero for other people and her self. Which is seen when the promoter tries to bring her back onto the stage. “’You’ve got to go back, Janis. […] They’ll win if you don’t go back out there’ Oh, no. He’d hit on the one thing that would sway me. Hadn’t my parents raised me to be a hero?”
At this point, she convinces herself to get back on the stage. She also uses anaphora to magnify her message, which is done when she uses “I was” “I was having a hit record […] I was fifteen […] Yes I was going to […]”. So the reader’s focus is pointed on her and her feelings, and so the reader feels pathos with her, because she’s the centre of the text, for example, when she begins to cry: “I finally stopped playing and started crying. Not wanting the audience to see me break down …” or when she says: “Yes, I was going to stand for that. Of course I was going to stand for it” And right here she activates the use of pathos for the reader and the reader feels her fear, which she shows by substantiating her opinion “I can’t go back out there. I can’t. What if somebody takes a shot at me?”. And she also backs her opinion up with the matters of the hate mails that she has gotten from people, who don’t like the intention of her record. By doing this, she makes the reader understand what situation she’s in.

Her point is, that everybody should stand on their own ground, be proud of themselves and stay strong. This is the moral of the text, and it is shown many places. For example, when everybody she knows tells her to change her lyrics of her song, because it would make people go mad, if someone white wrote about their love to a black kid. “’Janis if you’ll change this one word - I can guarantee you a number one record. Just change ‘black’ to anything else. It’s your decision.’ I thought about it for around two seconds, […] To my way of thinking, I had nothing to lose.” Or when she encourages herself, to get back up onto the scene to finish the show. “I couldn’t stand the thought that I might be a coward - I just couldn’t stand it.”And as she gets on to the stage, she takes control, as she shows her courage and confidence, just looking at the troublemakers leave the theatre. And the piece of lyric that she has chosen to paste into the text, just makes it a magical moment, because the lyrics just shows the courage of someone doing something that nobody else would do.

Janis Ian showed her belief to herself and the people in the theatre.
In the end she raises up her glistering wings and flies above everything, because she believes in herself, and didn’t let the fear of the troublemakers take over her. She shows her courage by standing up for herself, and her principles, and she shows that she’s not the weak one in her battle between her and the troublemakers. She wouldn’t let the people who yelled at her win, because she learned that she had to grow up a hero. And she showed this when she finally encouraged herself to be the hero.

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[ 1 ]. Line 345, Page 10
[ 2 ]. Line 3, Page 7
[ 3 ]. Line 6, Page 7
[ 4 ]. Line 145, Page 9
[ 5 ]. Line 280, Page 11
[ 6 ]. Line 84, Page 8
[ 7 ]. Line 298, Page 11
[ 8 ]. Line 292, Page 11
[ 9 ]. Line 263, Page 10
[ 10 ]. Line 66, Page 8
[ 11 ]. Line 246, Page 10
[ 12 ]. Line 145, Page 9
[ 13 ]. Line 200, Page 10
[ 14 ]. Line 276, Page 10
[ 15 ]. Line 343, Page 11

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