A Literary Analysis of Kim Daniel’s, “Lori.”

Kim Carol Daniel’s story, “Lori,” shows the struggle that Lori went through during her stay at foster care. As a survivor of the 60’s scoop, Lori recalls the difficulties she faced while growing up. Not only was her foster mother cruel and abusive, but she also despised her ethnicity and was not reluctant to express the inferiority she perceived of her. Lori’s childhood is clouded with harassment and rejection that she grows, knowing as the truths regarding her origin and background. However, as an adult, Lori has learned to appreciate her worth through self-discovery and valuing herself as a person regardless of the circumstances surrounding her upbringing. The following reading presents Lori’s childhood challenges at foster care as a way to point out the dilemma she is going through in deciding to attend or skip her foster mother’s funeral.

Daniel shows that Harassment and bullying were the norms for Lori as a child. Not a day would pass without the young girl being aggravated either at school or foster care. So much was the harassment that she devised ways to cope through it. Daniel compares this routine harassment that Lori experiences in school to her breakfast that she usually takes every morning. She asserts, “Her breakfast before heading off to school is always the same, as is the bullying on the .

playground (Daniel)” Her foster mother was not any different and, in fact, was in most cases the first person to harass her each morning after Lori wakes up. Daniel mentions how Lori had learned to obey her foster mother’s dressing choice without hesitation, which would otherwise lead to her seeing, “the back of a hand if not immediately obedient.” So dark are Lori’s thoughts when recalling those dark times as a child that she wonders if she should be sad or angry at the news of her foster mother’s death. Apart from the physical abuse, Lori’s harassment is seen in the racial slurs and name-calling she received due to her ethnic roots. Her foster mother referred to her as “Shvartze” and “Darkie” due to her dark complexion. As a non-white, Lori was made to know she is inferior to others around her, both at home and at school. As Daniel points out, Lori was made to know her skin color made her ugly.

The racial slurs and name-calling were part of the bigger despise and neglect Lori was facing at the foster care. Daniel presents Lori’s foster mother as an individual who despised Lori for her aboriginal roots and only did the least in providing her needs. Despite the Department of Social Services sending money to her foster mother as well as providing other benefits to cater for Lori’s needs, Lori did not receive the benefits as would have been expected. Daniel shows the neglect by describing Lori’s black sweater as the only one she ever had. She mentions, “The black sweater is a hand-me-down, even though foster-mommy is given money to buy the little girl new clothes (Daniel).” Also, the foster mother’s neglect and hatred towards Lori are seen by her desire to see Lori off her care once she turned 18. As an adult, child support benefits were cut back, forcing her to search for adopters. Despite Lori’s foster mother being the only family she knew, she was quick to abandon her shrugging off the idea with stinging and hateful comments. She asserts, “She’ll become a hooker and a drunk and a thief, that’s the way they are. Rotten greasy Indians, those schvartze.” The neglect and despise that Lori experienced at the care of her foster mother was too much that it haunted her on the slightest memory of her time at the foster home.  She even picked a habit of smoking cigarettes as a mechanism to deal with the pain of the thoughts and memories of her old life. As Daniel points out, “Lori lights another cigarette without realizing she’s chain-smoking. Her coping mechanism for when old voices haunt”

Smoking cigarettes to cope with the childhood memories that haunt her was one of Lori’s practices’ of self-discovery.  Apart from that, further digging and research help her realize the meaning of schvartze, the name she was commonly called by her foster mother, as well as her peers in school. As a child, Lori knew the name did not match the explanation her mother told her. She gained clarity on the meaning of the abusive term during her time at the university. Lori came across an article describing the German term as the “concept of child-raising, specifically designed to damage a child’s emotional development (Daniel).” Originally, the name is linked to children believed to possess “seeds of evil.” Gaining clarity on the name surely makes Lori understand why neighbors and uncles always laughed maniacally while pointing fingers at her when using the term to refer to Lori. Realizing her foster mother and her childhood surrounding, in general, had bestowed her an insulting name makes her consider skipping her foster mother’s funeral as well as following up on the reason that led to her death altogether. Lori’s self-awareness journey is enhanced by her meeting an elder. The elder shows her she has both a good side and a mean fighting element within her advising her to be wise with the side she chooses to feed the most as it will be the defining element of her character. The elder’s sentiments end Lori’s doubts and dilemma regarding attending the funeral as she decides to go on a vacation as a way of treating herself with respect and value, rather than attend the funeral of someone who was not good to her.

In summary, Lori’s memories of her childhood experiences and upbringing at the foster care are filled with the horrors she went through. Apart from harassment and neglect, Lori was despised and made to believe she is inferior. All these negative experiences were driven by her foster mother, a key person to her upbringing as Lori’s only family. As an adult, Lori discovers her self-worth and learns to value herself more than the ones who rejected and insulted her. The realization of her self-worth guides Lori to forget and ignore the mean people in her previous life by treating herself better and with good, contrary to what they did.

 

 

Works Cited

Daniel, Kim Carol. Lori. n.d.