Critical Essay- “a Piece of Cake” free essay sample

At the start of this book, before Cupcake has her first encounter with drugs-the consumption of alcohol-the reader is told about the moments leading up to her finding her mother dead. Cupcake also adds in snippets of information about her family and lifestyle as she was growing up which give the reader more background information and helps create more of a â€Å"relationship† between them and Cupcake . These first eight pages of the book are the only times the reader gets a glimpse of Cupcake ’s true â€Å"normal† self before her life starts a downward spiral. Unlike what Cupcake becomes when she is â€Å"using†, as a child she is friendly and willing to socialise with other people, â€Å"I was going round to Daddy’s house to play with Kelly, the daughter of his lady friend†, illustrating that she is doing it out of choice, i. e. without being forced to, which suggests that she is happy to have friends and enjoys the company. Like any other child of her age Cupcake is naive, but she soon becomes a lot more knowledgeable on â€Å"streetwise† matters. For example, â€Å"Daddy did have a lady friend, Lori-but to me, she was just that: his friend. , tells us that before she started living on the streets, due to drug abuse, she was unaware of the different kinds of relationships grown ups, and indeed teenagers, can be a part of. Along with these positive characteristics Cupcake had as a young girl, she nevertheless had low self-esteem about her own appearance. The statement â€Å"when I passed the dresser I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, boy was I ugly. †, clearly states that she was self conscious and awkward about her appearance. The children at her school would tease her as well, â€Å"Vette, Vette, looks just like my pet†, which must have lowered her self-esteem even more. Just like any other child, bullying made Cupcake feel unwanted and ugly. This is just the top layer of Cupcakes hatred towards her appearance, as the whilst writing the book she says a lot more degrading things about herself. From the moment Cupcake’s mother unexpectedly dies, her life goes downhill fast. In her foster home, she is abused by a 25-year old man: he gives her her first drink of alcohol and he then rapes her; this first taste of alcohol, at the age of eleven, is where her drug abuse begins. The statements â€Å"whatever it was, I liked it instantly. † and â€Å"the more I drank, the happier I got. indicate that she enjoyed it immediately, making her forget about her problems which is why she gets into drugs in the first place. â€Å"it made me not feel. I liked not feeling. †. As Cupcakes life continues without her mother, she learns a lot more about the harsh world her mother never spoke of and develops strong opinions on what life is about. Throug hout the book she meets prostitutes, pimps, turns ‘tricks’ sells herself, steals and fights as part of a gang. These criminalities all make Cupcake realise that what she, as a young girl growing up in suburbia, thought about society was completely false. This is illustrated by â€Å"the lessons were clear: men only want you for sex; sex means money; money bought necessities like food, shelter, booze and drugs; drugs and booze make life- and the sex- not so bad. †. From this opinion it is easy to realise what Cupcake values as most important in life; money, drugs and booze. She doesnt care how she gets them she just has to get them. It also shows that Cupcake thinks she understands, what life is about, and therefore has lost all naivety due to being thrown into the world that comes with using drugs. Throughout the book the drugs make Cupcake apathetic and antisocial â€Å"I never really bothered with the girls at work- as long as they stayed out of my business, that was good enough for me. † thus telling us that she was not interested in having friends or telling people about her life and general â€Å"chit chat†. This is a change from how she was at the beginning, always going round to Kellys house to play. Just as the use of alcohol and drugs does with any other person, they give Cupcake new-found confidence. The first time she has alcohol she says â€Å"I didnt feel so, dark, black and ugly†. When she has weed and alcohol she says â€Å"with them I could do anything†. Cupcake’s new confidence is not a good thing though, as she has the confidence to do and say things she would never do and say whilst sober. Her mind tells her that it is okay to be blunt and rude to people, that she is better than everybody else, that she is gorgeous, and that she can do anything she wants. This, however, is not true. When she is disrespectful to people she gets herself into a lot of trouble. Unable to stop before it is too late, things often escalate and she ends up getting kicked out of clubs, leading to more dangerous situations as she is alone late at night whilst under the influence. She is also unable to see what a mess she has become. Using drugs completely obscures her vision of reality and gives her a false sense of greatness and self esteem. It is not until towards the end of the book that she sees herself â€Å"properly† for the first time. â€Å"I saw myself, I mean I really saw myself; my arms like toothpicks and my legs as thin as rails. † â€Å"I hadnt brushed my teeth or washed my ass. Hadnt combed my hair or changed my clothes. All I’d been doing was turning tricks, getting high and living- no existing†. It is from this moment that Cupcake decides she needs to quit, not just wants to quit. She take the step of signing up for rehab. She has been so wrapped up in doing everything she can to feed her addiction and has had a false outlook of herself that she has been overlooking her appearance, or refusing to see what other people see. As stated before, the drugs give her a false image of herself. Whilst on the rehab programme, Cupcake goes through even more changes to her attitude. Although she can never get her innocence or naivety back she can however, become a polite and friendly person once again. She does not want to become unconfident again so she has to learn to love herself. Her mentor, Venitia, works through different exercises with Cupcake to help her achieve her ambitions to become a better person. First, she makes Cupcake apologise to everyone she can about how she has offended them. At first Cupcake does not want to do this, she says she is â€Å"embarrassed†, so Venitia says to her â€Å"Oh, now you’re concerned about how you look? You werent concerned when you were throwing shit and acting a damn fool! . Through Venitias help Cupcake slowly comes to terms with how much of a rude and volatile person she was. Cupcake’s proclamation â€Å"From that day forward, I’ve never acted like that again no more physical violence I just didnt like the way belligerent behaviour made me feel. I didn’t like remembering my igno rant conduct. More importantly, I hated making amends. † states that as soon as Cupcake started to think more closely about how she acted she is shocked and wants to change. The next exercise Venitia makes Cupcake do is to write down everything she loves about herself on post-it notes. At first Cupcake does not know what to write â€Å"I responded that I couldn’t think of a single positive thing to say about myself. †. This tells us that now Cupcake is sober she is back to being her old unconfident self. As soon as Cupcake gets into the swing of the exercise they end up using â€Å"two pads of post-its. †. In contrast, this points to what she really thinks about it, there is a lot more about herself that she likes. In conclusion, at the start of the book, when Cupcake was a little girl and did not â€Å"use† she was innocent, naive, pleasant, and unconfident. All that changed when she was hurled into a harsh world without a mother and had to rely on drugs to give her the happiness and confidence she craved. In the middle of the book she loses her innocence, becomes aware of reality; facing a world of horrors we could only imagine, rude, vulgar and vicious and having a false confidence which was supplied only by alcohol and drugs. During the end of the book as Cupcake is â€Å"cleaning up† she learns to be respectful towards others, even if they do something which she doesnt like, be confident without the use artificial factors, and most importantly she learns to love herself for who she is.