Characters

The most important characters in the excerpt from Society’s Child - My Autobiography are the teenage Janis Ian and her concert promoter. The narrator (adult Janis Ian) also mentions people from her record company and describes the attitudes of the audience. The attitudes of the audience are important for the story’s themes because they illustrate a society divided by racial prejudice. On the one hand, there are those who support and admire Janis for her courage in singing about interracial love. On the other hand, there are those who are racist and oppose interracial relationships and who shout offensive insults to Janis.

Janis Ian

As a character in this autobiographical story, Janis Ian is presented at the age of fifteen, soon after her first record was released. Consequently, we know that she was a young, white musician: “I was having a hit record. I was singing for people who wanted me dead. I was fifteen years old.” (ll. 30-33)

Janis’ character as a teenager is revealed through her actions, her thoughts, and her attitude.

We find out that the teenage girl was a folk musician who rapidly became popular in some circles and hated in others because of her song, “Society’s Child”, which talked about interracial relationships at a time when they were forbidden in parts of the US (interracial marriage was fully legalized in the United States in 1967, soon after the events of this story take place).

According to the narrator’s story, her experience of living in a mixed community inspired her to write the song, but she did not think too much about the social message she would send when she wrote it:

My black friends’ parents didn’t want them dating whites. My white friends’ parents didn’t want them dating blacks. The whole thing seemed pretty stupid to me, so I wrote about it to clear out my system. I never thought of it as a song about an interracial love affair gone bad. I just thought of it as a good song. (ll. 84-92)

Janis refused to change the song lyrics before its release which shows that she did not want to give up her principles, inspired by the attitude of her favorite singer Bob Dylan:

And coming from a folk tradition, I couldn’t see telling new friends like Dave Van Ronk or Odetta...