45 pages • 1 hour read
Heather O'NeillLullabies for Little Criminals
Heather O'NeillFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Heroin Subculture
The heroin subculture weaves together Baby’s environment. Heroin is the force that drives everything Jules does, and it’s a rite of passage into adulthood for Baby and the other children in the novel. Jules refers to heroin as “chocolate milk” (10) to hide it from Baby, but since she knows what he’s referring to, it makes heroin seem as innocuous as a child’s drink and as common; it takes away the danger. This is why when Baby first tries heroin, she feels like it was inevitable and she’s not scared. Heroin has always been part of her world.
For Baby and the other children, heroin is one of the only constants in their unstable world. When Baby is separated from Jules, prostituting, and living with Alphonse, she turns to heroin as a way to cope. She’s too young to realize that heroin is the source of her problems rather than a remedy. Heroin makes her feel complacent and numb to her problems, which prevents her from actually facing them.
Baby has a complicated relationship with heroin. In the beginning, she resents Jules’s heroin use because it continually takes him away from her. After he gets sober and distant from her, she believes that heroin makes him love her more; this gives her a special affinity for heroin, and it’s why she’s quick to try it when it’s offered to her. Even after she’s addicted, she doesn’t realize the dangers, thinking only that she feels better after getting high.
Baby lives in neighborhoods where heroin is ubiquitous, and her friends come from parents who use, like Jules. This creates a pervasive environment where heroin is inescapable. Baby’s friend in the foster home, Linus Lucas, glorifies heroin and pretends he’s high on it because his uncle uses, and he thinks his uncle is cool because of it. The kids in the community center fawn over Baby when her arm is dislocated and she’s put on prescription pills, because they recognize the addiction possibility and think it’s cool.
Mothers
Baby is constantly searching for the love of a mother. She admits that “Jules tried to be a mother, but he’d always kind of fallen short of the mark” (186). Jules could barely be a father, let alone take on the role of a devoted, affectionate mother. With a negligent father and without a mother, Baby is always searching for a mother figure to fill that void in her life. She briefly feels somewhat fulfilled when she lives with Isabelle in the foster home and with Mary, but these experiences quickly vanish. She seeks the attention of her Russian landlady, and she feels enamored of the femininity of the prostitutes because she has no one to teach her the secrets of being a woman.
Being without a mother leads Baby to make decisions that she wouldn’t otherwise. In a desperate attempt to feel comforted after Jules tears up the doll that came from her mother, she lets Theo’s mom hug her, despite hating her. This is a low moment in her life, when she feels “violated and dirty, as if I’d raped myself. Falling in love with a mother like that was about as low as you could go in this world” (122). Wishing for the love of a mother is what leads her to seek Alphonse’s comfort as well. She says, “When Alphonse came into my life, it strangely felt a little bit like he was a mother figure. Every good pimp is a mother” (186). She’s aware that having a mother would give her a role model, and without one, she feels formless, like she has no one to define herself against.
At the end, there is hope that Janine will finally fulfill the role of a mother in Baby’s life. Janine immediately hugs her tight when they first meet; Baby is always craving physical affection, so this gesture is a foreshadowing that she will meet Baby’s needs like a mother would. Baby also recognizes that Janine’s eyes look like Jules’s and her own, and this symbolizes how Baby recognizes a familial bond between them. Janine represents a model of someone who has overcome the sort of circumstances that ruined Jules and threaten to ruin Baby.
Lullabies
Like the title suggests, lullabies are an important motif. Lullabies are soothing songs meant to put a child to sleep, but in the novel they take a variety of detrimental forms. Most notably, Baby makes the connection between Alphonse and lullabies when she says, “When Alphonse spoke to me, his voice always had the same tempo as a lullaby” (186). Alphonse’s lullaby is the way he initially speaks kind, encouraging, and affectionate words towards her, lulling her into a sense of comfort and trust. However, these soothing words are only an illusion, and he quickly takes advantage of her trust.
Once Baby is entangled with Alphonse, her lullaby becomes heroin. Heroin is the only force that can soothe her into complacency after dealing with Alphonse’s abuse and the prostitution of her body. Heroin also reminds her of happy times with Jules, and the thought soothes her into nostalgia. She says, “If there was an alphabet for little street kids, on the page where it said H is for Heroin, there would be a picture of Jules smiling” (287).
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