Helen Keller's Suffering

<b>‘Suffering is an essential element of childhood experiences; without it a child could not learn and grow' Does literature you study support this statement?</b>
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<br>‘Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it'. This literal and realistic statement said by one who has known suffering and has dealt with it. Helen Keller experienced a traumatic time as a child; being deaf and blind, she knew suffering but also knew that it is possible for it to be conquered and forgot. She suffered in this way as a child and her adult life was a good one because of this suffering. The most important element in any child's life is to learn and grow. Does experiencing anguish and misery enable a child to flourish, consequently
Pleasure Mouse's close friend Honey Tongue is very assuring and tells Pleasure Mouse that the foot binding will be the best thing to happen to her. ‘The pain goes away and then you have a weapon that you never dreamed of.' Honey Tongue is promising Pleasure Mouse that the suffering will be worth the pain and when she is an adult, she will be thankful she has tiny feet. The suffering she must endure as a child will provide experience for her and she can grow into a beautiful young woman. In China at this time a young ladies priority, in a high social class like this, was to find a noble man to wed. With the pain Pleasure Mouse has endured, she has now achieved full potential for fulfilling her adult life.
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<br>Pleasure Mouse suffered actual physical pain in one section of her life from which her mental anguish about the experience will not be recovered. She will never feel the same again as she did when young; the foot binding has ruined her life. Never again from now on can she run, skip, and leap around. Frank McCourt, on the other hand, was living in poverty and suffering for most of his life, it is not been a painful experience for one
His whole body takes part.
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<br>Lord of the Flies is an extreme example to support the question asked in this essay. There is an amount of suffering present in the novel but an excessive amount will result in damaging the child's mental health instead of teaching them and allowing them to grow.
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<br>Using the boys in Lord of the Flies, when they murder Simon, it is shocking to realise what children can do to each other. In addition, we have examples of this as Master John is compelled to throw the book at Jane and how the women can give so much pain to Pleasure Mouse by binding her feet. Children often cause suffering upon one another, as we can see in Vernon Scannel's poem Hide and Seek.
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<br>The poem tells of young children enjoying an innocent game of hide and seek. As the poem is written in the first person, the writer becomes the little boy who has found a prime spot in which to hide. He thinks he has his friends fooled but come the end of the poem, both the reader and the boy realise that a manoeuvre has been played to mislead him.
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<br>The boy is hiding in a garden shed and is talking to himself in a state of excitement. The poem progresses and the atmosphere changes as the boy becomes uncomfortable in his surroundings. He is talking to himself still but now unlike before, he is doing so to comfort himself, as he is aware of his loneliness. ‘Your legs are stiff, the cold bites