Andy Mulligan's Trash

1026 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Literature poverty essay

The act and belief that social justice should be valued by each and every human being on this earth are absolutely essential. However; in reality, this is not the case, due to lack of equality, differences in power and the loss of value in a human life. Andy Mulligan’s 2010 novel, ‘Trash’ explores the story of unthinkable poverty, one of the many social injustice issues in this world. Mulligan personally experienced unthinkable poverty during his travels to the Philippines (where he now lives and works). As he witnessed this injustice in person, Mulligan easily applied this throughout the storyline in a very attention-worthy matter, catching all aspects and the kind of hope and determination that can transcend it. Mulligan questions the real …show more content…

We are continually judged on the amount of power we hold, it is so unnecessary yet it still occurs every day. During his travels, Mulligan witnessed individuals with and without the privileged access to power. We know this is true as it is very much displayed in our community. The dumpsite community live very simplistic lives, they do not hold too much power but are overpowered by people with power. “The wall divides the rich quarter, where there dead get buried in earth, from the poor quarter where the dead get stacked up in boxes.” This not only shows the comparison of treatment from rich and poor but the general mistreatment of the ‘poor’. This is incorrect, no life should be dehumanised for the amount of access to power we have, although we see this in many countries every day. Audiences immediately want to act upon this, change what is happening to be equal, there should not be a big difference just because some people have access to power that others don’t. “ In this country you pay for being stupid, just as you pay for being poor.” Mulligan exposed the reality in the world we live in. The injustice individuals have to suffer from are despicable. The audience is left questioning the way we judge and act in these situations if we are doing the right

Show More
Related

  • Quotes From The Mom Or The Dad By Rex Walls

    392 Words  | 1 Pages

    When the Walls family gets a ride from a stranger after their vehicle breaks down on the highway. Jeannette is annoyed how the stranger keeps on uses and emphasizes the word poor on the Walls family. And that Jeannette is not accepting reality about her family being poor.

    Read More

  • Andy Mulligan Trash

    510 Words  | 2 Pages

    When I first started reading the book “Trash” it grabbed my attention right away. ”Trash” is like a movie also, As you get into the pages your taken into deep and deeper thoughts. It really gets you thinking how everything will turn out. It also takes you into sights, sound and smells. Like the figurative language and the characters traits. As the main character Raphael introduce himself and weird way. When you pick up this book it might seem entertaining and catch a lot of people’s interest if you like crime and books about mysteries. Also, this book has no previous knowledge. So, Raphael and his friends live on a huge dump truck site. Which the city they live in is frictional which is called Latin America. Theirs lives are constantly

    Read More

  • Poverty In The SBS Program, Struggle Street (2015)

    1013 Words  | 3 Pages

    Overall, the SBS programme, Struggle Street (2015) provided a graphic insight into the hardships faced by lower-class Australians in Mount Druitt, Sydney. Nevertheless, viewing the programme allowed me to reflect and compare with my own observations of poverty within both Vietnam and Cambodia. The emotion I felt whilst watching the programme was incomparable to helplessly observing the great poverty within Cambodia.

    Read More

  • Image Of Homelessness In Mark Peterson's Image Of Homeless

    1318 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mark Peterson’s 1994 photograph, Image of Homelessness, compares the everyday life of the working class to the forgotten life of the lowest class in society. In the image, the viewer can see a troubled homeless man wrapped in a cocoon of standard manipulated 12in by 12in cardboard boxes and yarn. The yarn is what is keeping the man and box tied to the red bench. This bench has chipped paint and is right in front of a black fence. Underneath the bench is dirt and debris from the dead fall leaves. The center focal point is the homeless man on the bench. He is the focal point because he is the greatest outsider known to man. Behind this man is vibrant life. There is pulsating people crossing the clean street, signs of life from all the advertising on store windows, families walking and blurred cars filled with

    Read More

  • The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shipler

    741 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Working Poor: Invisible in America, David K. Shipler tells the story of a handful of people he has interviewed and followed through their struggles with poverty over the course of six years. David Shipler is an accomplished writer and consultant on social issues. His knowledge, experience, and extensive field work is authoritative and trustworthy. Shipler describes a vicious cycle of low paying jobs, health issues, abuse, addiction, and other factors that all combine to create a mountain of adversity that is virtually impossible to overcome. The American dream and promise of prosperity through hard work fails to deliver to the 35 million people in America who make up the working poor. Since there is neither one problem nor one solution to poverty, Shipler connects all of the issues together to show how they escalate each other. Poor children are abused, drugs and gangs run rampant in the poor neighborhoods, low wage dead end jobs, immigrants are exploited, high interest loans and credit cards entice people in times of crisis and unhealthy diets and lack of health care cause a multitude of problems. The only way that we can begin to see positive change is through a community approach joining the poverty stricken individuals, community, businesses, and government to band together to make a commitment to improve all areas that need help.

    Read More

  • Eighner Style Analysis

    1109 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...stic things in order to live a better, more sound, and overall healthier life. Juxtaposition makes the audience want to follow through with the purpose. Exemplification causes the audience to realize the extent of their materialistic nature. A definition of the average homeless person’s terms allows him to build his ethos and consequently allow the audience to believe and follow his purpose. A majority of people are a part of the middle class, and this majority tends to judge the poor for their lifestyle whether it be through Dumpster diving or begging on the streets. However, as proven by the essay, these people have no right to do so because the poor do, in reality, have a greater sense of self than these middle-class people, similar to the rich. The middle-class citizens must no longer act the victim; instead, they should be working on becoming more sentimental.

    Read More

  • Homelessness in "The Glass Castle"

    1263 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, health care, and education” (National Coalition for the Homeless - Why Are People Homeless?). Such a condition is evident in Walls’ book. In The Glass Castle, the Walls family lives in gruesome conditions because of poverty. “Because on the rare occasion that we paid the electricity bill and had power, we’d get a wicked shock if we touched any damp or metallic surface in the room” (Walls 153). I don’t really think you need this quote, but if you decide to keep it in, say how the fact that they rarely have power is important.

    Read More

  • Andy Mulligan's Trash

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    Survivors are individuals who possess the characteristics of love, pain, fear, and hunger when they are faced with challenges and adversities. Consequently so, survivors usually act as catalysts towards change and growth by reinforcement and encouraging others to conquer any challenges they may experience. The novel Trash, composed by Andy Mulligan, investigates how individuals utilize these characteristics of love, pain, fear, and hunger in a positive way to further individual change and growth for both themselves and their community.

    Read More

  • A Class Divided

    890 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...e is different inequality socially and politically. The inequality is determined by people’s ideals of what they were taught and society projects as the superior and inferior races. This film shows that there is a way to change that if you make the other side see how they affect the people they are discriminating against. It is the responsibility of the adults to stop these learned behaviors and teach the children that people are all equal, that is what needs to be instilled in the generations to come otherwise everything will stay the same. We have come a long way as a people but we still have a long way that we need to go. Nothing will ever be perfect but it should always get better. The lesson that is learned from this workshop is lessons that should be taught in every classroom all over the world maybe then we will see that we are no different from each other.

    Read More

  • Social Stigmas In Sea Oak By George Saunders

    2069 Words  | 5 Pages

    Poverty, one of society's most prevalent and hotly debated topics. There is always a plethora of social stigmas associated with the impoverished. These stigmas generally revolve around the idea that the heavily impoverished are just too lazy, or that they squander off their meager earnings for luxuries such as alcohol or illicit drugs. However, many of these social stigmas prove to be an inaccurate representation of the impoverished. One author in particular, George Saunders, is advocating to inform his readers on the misconceptions of these stigmas. George Saunders is an author who writes short stories, and although his stories just seem to be tall tales, almost all of them include some profound message on poverty. Through his literary works

    Read More

  • What is Poverty?

    1070 Words  | 3 Pages

    Her use of connotative language creates many harsh images of her experiences in a life of poverty, a life of poverty. By using these images, Parker is capable of causing the damage. reader to feel many emotions and forces the reader to question his or her own stereotypes of the poor. With the use of connotative language and the ability to arouse emotion, Parker successfully compels the reader to examine his or her. thoughts and beliefs on who the poor are.

    Read More

  • The End Of Poverty: Movie Analysis

    895 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 2008 documentary The End of Poverty? is a film that focuses around global poverty and how it became the tragedy that it is today. Poverty was created by acts of military conquest, slavery and colonization that led to the confiscation of individual’s property and forced labor. However, today the problem remains because wealthy countries who take advantage of developing third world countries. The film interviews several activists who discuss how the issues became and several ways in which they could be eliminated, as well as interviews from individuals who are experiencing it firsthand.

    Read More

  • George Orwell's Essay 'Such, Such Were The Joys'

    1432 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poor class is represented this way to show how money appears to buy success and happiness through Orwell’s implying the “Joys” that the elite class has. Main Points: Being poor can restrict opportunities in education and in life. Poor children were treated unequally at school and wealth influences some of the important things in life.

    Read More

  • Orwell's Take On Society in “Marrakech”

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    As portrayed above, poverty is the misery of life. “No gravestone, no name, no identifying mark of any kind. The burying-ground is merely a huge waste of hummocky earth, like a derelict building-lo...

    Read More

  • The Causes and Effects of Poverty

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion, sometimes actions take place that changes a person’s outlook on life and as you can see poverty is one that can have a huge effect on not only one person, but also the people around him/ her.

    Read More

More about Andy Mulligan's Trash

Open Document