In a New York Times article, “Too Poor to Make the News,” author Barbara Ehrenreich focuses on the impact the recession has caused to the lives of the working poor. She begins her article by describing how the newly group, known as Nouveau poor, have to give up valuables where as the working poor have to give up housing, food, and prescription medicines. Ehrenreich’s purpose is to inform her readers who are blessed enough not to suffer like the working poor. Barbara Ehrenreich’s article examines the impacts the recession has on the lives of the working poor, by demonstrating pathos, and makes readers aware of the sufferings the poor have to face. Barbara Ehrenreich examines the aspects that are impacting the working poor from the recession.
In Julie Bettie’s, “Women Without Class”, she studies the differences between white and Mexican-American working-class senior year girls in high school. She aims to explain how race and gender intersect with class to shape both success in high school as well as class future. Not only are symbolic boundaries found between the girls that she studies, but also many factors including cultural capital and peer hierarchy that effect these students. Firstly, the symbolic boundaries created between the preps and las chicas starts with the symbolic economy of style.
Seeing and making culture: representing the poor by Bell Hooks, is a hard look at the way the higher class and lower class see the poor. The essay was written by the way Hooks seen how the higher class had prejudices towards the lower class. Gloria Watkins, or Bell Hook as she is known in her writings is a prominent colored scholar her topics range from race to gender and even some politics. Her child hood helped her to write the essay, seeing and making culture: representing the poor. As a child of disadvantaged background, her father worked for the local post office as a janitor in a small Kentucky town.
In the article “How I Discovered the Truth about Poverty” Barbara Ehrenreich gives her view in poverty and explains why she think Michael Harington’s book “The Other American” gives a wrong view on poverty. She explained that Harrington believes that the poor thought and felt differently and what divides the poor was their different “culture of poverty.” Ehrenreich goes on to explain on how the book that became a best seller caused so many bad stereotypes on the poor that by the Reagan era poverty was seen as “bad attitudes” and “faulty lifestyles” and not by the lack of jobs or low paying jobs. And they also viewed the poor as “Dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to “defer gratification,” or possibly even set an alarm clock.”
There is lower, middle, and upper class, but there are also subcategories that fill the gaps in between, like the impoverished and the top one percenters. “Class in America”, written by Gregory Mantsios, addresses the myths and realities about socioeconomic class in America and how they affect American lives. His article highlights the unequal divide that has persisted over the course of history and will continue to manifest in the future. To introduce the existence of this issue, Mantsios states that this country’s citizens “don’t like to talk about class...or class privileges, or class oppression, or the class nature of society” (Mantsios 378). This is the case in America today because people are neglecting to acknowledge the existence of these elusive
“It invites one to be still, to hear divine voices speak” (hooks,125). This quote from A Place Where the Soul Can Rest by belle hooks describes the importance of the front porches to African American women who faced issues and judgment regarding their race, gender, and social standing. The porch signifies a place in which these women can relax, and escape not only from their household duties, but from all of the discrimination they face in their own neighborhoods. In the essay, the author herself reflects on her childhood as a young African American, and how her life was affected by racism, sexism, and gender stereotypes and roles. As a child, hooks’ place of safety and security lied on her front porch, where she was able to escape
In his story, “A&P”, John Updike shows that sometimes people unhappy with their opportunities judge people based upon their social class causing bad decisions and later disappointment. Updike utilizes symbolism, irony, and characterization to display the impact of a person’s social class on society. The different social classes of people create a barrier between them leading to the desperation of trying to fit on a different level. Social status is the way a person lives their life and the lifestyle they
In Bell Hooks’ essay, “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”, Hooks addresses and clarifies the misinterpretations that people have of the assumptions made of the poor, how poor individuals are viewed in human culture and how the poor are represented on television. She helps the audience understand how these assumptions are wrong. Hooks begins her first point by addressing the false assumptions that are made every day about poor people through expressing her own experiences.
In the essay On the Meaning of Plumbing and Poverty, author Melanie Scheller touches on the idea of identity in terms of the poor as well as the treatment they receive. Scheller herself grew up living with her widowed mother and six children in whatever broken-down home they could afford (Scheller 320) . She begins this essay by tying her observance of an elderly woman that goes to the bathroom and flushes the toilet routinely to her growing up without an indoor plumbing system, because during her childhood those that did not have these facilities were considered poor. Basically, if you were poor then you were worthless and would not have a future. Throughout her essay, Scheller tells her stories of having to share a small home with many people, being judged by assumptions, and being
Mantsios’ compares the profiles of different Americans lifestyles in his text and develops the idea that an individual’s class standing can affect their livelihood in detrimental ways, “The lower one’s class standing, the more difficult it is to secure appropriate housing, the more time is spent on routine tasks of everyday life, the greater is the percentage of income that goes to pay for food and other basic necessities, and the greater is the likelihood of crime victimization” (293). Mantsios explains that one’s class standing can affect the chances of survival and success. Ehrenreich describes her own housing experiences as a low income worker. To reduce her overall costs and to obtain a second job, Ehrenreich moves closer to Key West. Ehrenreich has just enough money to pay the rent and deposit on a tiny trailer at the Overseas Trailer Park.
Argumentative Text Essay In the book Nickel and Dimed, written by Barbara Ehrenreich, the author argues how challenging it is to live in a life of poverty. To prove to herself as well as others that this statement is accurate, she makes the decision to experience this lifestyle firsthand by taking low-wage jobs and recording the results. Ehrenreich took on jobs including a maid service, waitressing, and assisting the nursing home to make enough money for a place to sleep and food to eat. The work’s central argument is the fact that minimum and low wage workers face a myriad of difficulties in getting by in America; they receive very low pay, harsh treatments from their employers, and the inability to have an actual life.
Approximately 48,472,800 Americans live in poverty: 15.2% of the population. Poverty is clearly an ongoing issue in today’s society. Many people today look down upon, and think badly of, those who are impoverished. Intolerance of poverty is an attitude held by most characters in “The Jacket”. These attitudes reflect the current intolerance towards poverty and persist throughout the story.
In the passage “What is poverty?”, the author Jo Goodwin Parker, describes a variety of things that she considers to portray the poverty in which she lives in. She seems to do this through her use of first-person point of view to deliver a view of poverty created by a focused use of rhetorical questions, metaphors, imagery, and repetition to fill her audience with a sense of empathy towards the poor. The author’s use of first person point of view creates the effect of knowing exactly what she is feeling. “The baby and I suffered on. I have to decide every day if I can bear to put my cracked hands into the cold water and strong soap.”
Social inequality is overlooked by many. It affects so many of us, though we have yet to realize how extreme it is. Lee argues in this novel how much stress social inequalities put on the black and white races throughout the 1930s. Although, social inequalities did not just affect different races, it also affected poor people and family backgrounds. These are proven in the novel multiple times through Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and the Cunninghams when the book is looked at more in
The theme of marginalization in society and how it has impacted on people’s lives is a significant theme for all. Marginalization is where a certain group of people are treated differently than others due to their race, gender or beliefs. The marginalized are not usually considered “main stream”, which means to have the power in society, and thus have no say in how you are treated. We see this theme in four texts, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, To Kill a Mockingbird directed by Robert Mulligan (1962), The Test by Angelica Gibbs and The Worn Path by Eudora Welty. Each of my selected texts has a character who is marginalized (Crooks & Tom Robinson & Marian & Phoenix Jackson) and is considered not part of the mainstream of society, consequently
