Janis Ian Research Paper

The author of the autobiography is named Janis Ian, who was a white girl that grew up among black people in New Jersey. She was one of seven white girls in her whole school and therefore there were a lot of opinions about the racial differences and angry narrow-minded parents, who would interfere in their children’s lives and choices about love. Janis Ian was a famous song writer and she was born in 1951 in New York, but lived in New Jersey through her childhood.

In this essay I will focus on how Janis Ian uses her music to send a message to the world and focus on the style of the text. At the same time I will include a characterization of Janis Ian based on this excerpt of her autobiography.

The autobiography is about a talented song writer named Janis Ian, who wrote songs about her childhood, where
This autobiography starts In Media Res where the crowd is yelling: “Nigger lover! Nigger lover!...” Janis Ian was standing on the stage in Encino, California and halfway through her most controversial song(Society’s Child), some of the people in the crowd decide to yell horrible things to get her to feel threatened and therefore either stop the concert or even stop her career. At this time Janis Ian was only fifteen years old and terrified of what the hostile crowd would do to her. She struggled not to cry but in the end she collapsed and walked off the stage without showing weakness for the crowd. As soon as she hit the wings, she ran to the ladies’ room and cried out. While she was crying, she thought about the horrible racial segregation in her childhood, which ended up defining her whole life. The concert promoter came rushing in to the ladies room and asked her what she was doing. She told about her fear of getting killed or getting things thrown at her. The concert promoter had a fear of