Lars Eighner: The Scavenger Life

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The Scavenger Life Essayist, Lars Eighner, in his prize-winning essay, "On Dumpster Diving," discusses his experience as a homeless person. Eighner's purpose is to convey the idea that society needs to be less materialistic and place emphasis on items with "sentimental value" (387). He wants society to not get caught up in materials and live life to the fullest. Eighner creates an informative and educated tone to convince readers that dumpster diving is a honest, not greedy or selfish, "modern form of self-reliance" (386). Eighner begins his essay by stating that he "began Dumpster diving about a year before [he] became homeless," showing that he has ample knowledge on this practice of scavenging. He talks about how scavenging is a "niche," …show more content…

He focuses on what he has learned from the practice of scavenging. He elaborates on two deep lessons he has learned through his experience. The first lesson is that society should only take things that are valuable to them and "let the rest go by" (386). The second lesson involves "the transience of material being," meaning that materialistic objects are not as significant compared to the thoughts behind them. This again strengthens Eighner's message about how the values in the objects are what matters. This essay's structure is based on the quote "beginning with the practical art of Dumpster diving and presiding to the abstract" (379). Eighner begins with an informative tone to explain the foods to eat and avoid, the stages Dumpster divers go through, and label the places where divers are most successful. The "abstract" part of the quote talks about the ideas and thoughts he gathered from his experiences as a homeless person. This satire on people's wastefulness transitions into a more critical tone when he critiques society for their obsession for materialistic objects and their wasteful nature. In "On Dumpster Diving," Eighner is delivering the message that society needs to only depend on items that, to them, express certain value, and to clarify that Dumpster diving is a way of life, not an immoral, greedy practice. Eighner wants readers to not only have respect for the poor, but to strive for efficiency by being less

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