Brief Summary Of Deterioration By Deserai Thomas

“Deterioration” is a creative writing piece told from the viewpoint of a small child dealing with a family full of addicts. The author, Deserai Lucas, describes the long term tragedy that drugs and alcohol pose upon children when both parents are abusing the substances at hand. Lucas’ purpose in this writing is to establish the harmful effects, and the level of awareness a child has in this particular situation. These circumstances are relatable and will attract an audience that has experienced deep pain from watching one suffer through addiction.
Lucas opens the story with a little girl speaking of her realization of the specific activities that her mom, dad, and brother are involving themselves in. Her parents have purposely misinformed her of the events happening within the home, but it has all begun to unravel within her mind. The little girl appeals to the sympathetic emotions of the audience by revealing that she knows about the “skunk smell” coming from her brother’s room, or that the “natural ice cans” her father drank were not filled with something as simple as water, and most of all that when her mother told her she needed to act sick around the doctor so that the mother could obtain the

In addition, the daughter grasps the attention of the sympathetic emotion from the reader when it is known that often her mother or father would not be sober enough to take her to and from school. There are many days she either did not attend, or frequently was forgotten, about and had to walk home. Sometimes, the little girl had to wait outside during the winter until her school’s gym was unlocked for her to enter for warmth. These signs of neglect are brought to attention in order to show how addiction changes the outlook of parents, and their inability to perform parental