This paper is an examination of the forces that shape individual growth and development during the early years of life, using a systems theory approach to considering such development. It focuses on Lark Ann Erhardt, the fictional narrator of Faith Sullivan's novel, The Cape Ann. Lark is six years old at the beginning of the book, and her growth throughout provides a remarkable and realistic portrait of the ways in which biological, psychological, social, and environmental elements affect individual development. Lark provides an intriguing case study of how a child learns codes of behavior and morality, deals with death, develops abstract thinking, establishes sexual identity, and starts to define her individual place in the world. The story is set during the end of the 1930s and the early 1940s, and Lark's case demonstrates the effects of historical, social, and economic pressures in individual development, as well. Personality and identity are established within the context in which the individual grows up, and Lark's case provides an interesting example of the ways in which such systems influence personal development.
Systems theory, as J. F. Longres (1995) observes, looks at the individual human being as an integrated part of his or her environment, constantly interacting with the surrounding world and constantly changing as a result of that interaction. The human environment is made up of individual human systems and social systems, which include structures created when individuals interact and interrelate.
The systems of which Lark Erhardt is a part are typically complex and interconnected. Her immediate family forms the first such level. She is the only child of Willie Erhardt, a railroad clerk whose job allows the family to make a home in the depot and whose gambling habits make moving out into a house of their own a near impossibility. Lark's mother, Arlene, dreams of a better life and puts much of her energy...