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My Autobiography: Society's Child By Janis Ian

972 Words4 Pages

Janis Ian, an American singer and songwriter, reflects back on the time surrounding the release of her song “Society’s child” in her autobiography “My autobiography”. She looks back on an event, that represents the different reactions to her song “Society’s child”. The song was released in 1967, and the event takes place around that time. Very controversial at the time, her song “Society’s child” is about the segregation, that was relevant at that time, and the difficulties surrounding falling in love with someone, who had a different skin colour than your own. Her autobiography can easily be put into the rhetorical pentagon. The writer is Janis Ian. “I was having a hit record. I was singing for people who wanted me dead. I was fifteen years old” (P. 8 ll. 30-33). This quote not only shows that Janis Ian is the writer, but also effects of it. She experienced the situation first hand, and because of that we get a clearer insight in the different reactions to her song, since she experienced them all. It helps you to get an insight in the circumstances. As earlier mentioned, the circumstances are her performing her song “Society’s child”, where she receives backlash for it. The circumstances are background for the topic. In her autobiography she deals with the topic of segregation. “Of course I was going to stand for it. Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney has been found dead in Mississippi, killed just for helping people register to vote. All I’d done was write a song, make a

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