Define the terms adversary and adversarial. Who were the Walls children’s adversaries during their early years? What in their lives seemed adversarial to a healthy and normal childhood?
This is actually a pretty detailed question for this short answer space. The terms adversary and adversarial are blurred because there are so many layers to the relationships in this story. On the surface it is clear the Walls children were put in abusive situations by their portents. On a simple level, you may call this adversarial but there are so many factors to consider. The Walls parents were extremely flawed individuals but, on some level, really thought they were functional parents. There were times of warmth and even care. Poverty was an adversity. Was this a result of the parents, the state (low social services), society? Was is solely the parents that are responsible?
