Dhairya Shah
Professor Sandfort
Writing 201
23rd October 2017
Poverty
In Literature and Nonfiction
In today’s world, the word poverty is well known throughout the societies. It has been a recurring issue for people throughout the history and still continues to be a problem. It is strange how people are still poor in the best economically developed countries. Poverty is not when people consider themselves poor for not being able to buy a bigger house or a fashionable car. Poverty strikes when a person is unable to provide food or shelter for their family members. These type of people are afraid to even get sick because they don’t have money for treatment. They lose their family members. The real word poverty means hunger, shelter, not having
…show more content…
“The Sweet Potato Pie” by Eugenia Collier is a story about a family who were Sharecroppers. Sharecropping was a farming system in the South during World War II. Landowners allowed enslaved people to live on and farm a portion of their land in exchange for half of the crops. In the family, there were two brothers, Charley and Buddy. Charley being the elder brother to Buddy, he took care of him while his parents worked all day. Buddy being the youngest child of poor Sharecroppers, he hardly ever saw his parents because they worked long days and nights to provide for their family. Their parents wanted to give good life to their children, therefore, they had to stay away from them all day and work hard. Education was almost ignored in the family because of their poor conditions. However, one day Charley determined that Buddy can be the person who can break the chain of poverty and become somebody in life. Therefore, buddy went to school and he studied really hard to make his family proud. Children in a higher social class usually take education for granted, but Buddy didn’t. He gave an excellent speech on his graduation day because he realized how his family had consciously sacrificed their own dreams and showed potential to help him succeed in life. He was considered as the gifted member to his family. Eventually, buddy became a teacher and Charley became a taxi driver to help their family. Poverty pushed everyone to work hard for their own needs to succeed in life. Poverty is not always negative if you push it and work hard. The name of the story has a symbolic meaning to itself. Sweet Potato Pie is a symbol of love between Charley, Buddy, their family and what their lives were once
David K. Shipler in his essay At the Edge of Poverty talks about the forgotten America. He tries to make the readers feel how hard is to live at the edge of poverty in America. Shipler states “Poverty, then, does not lend itself to easy definition” (252). He lays emphasis on the fact that there is no single universal definition of poverty. In fact poverty is a widespread concept with different dimensions; every person, country or culture has its own definition for poverty and its own definition of a comfortable life.
Living in poverty is not easy. Sometimes you can’t get the education you want, but it’s the key to breaking it. Harlem’s harsh living is difficult for Buddy along with its outside influences that can get in your way. In the story “Sweet Potato Pie” by Eugenia Collier, Buddy begins his life in poverty and then graduates college and becomes a professor. Buddy and his family are hardworking and want to break the chain of poverty. He is a very dynamic character. Buddy teaches us a few life lessons such as, sacrifice for family, love which can be shown greater than words can, and perseverance.
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.
Poverty is a worldwide epidemic, creating undesirable living conditions for many people on a daily basis. Some of the most touching stories in literature have an overlying theme of poverty. A wide variety of these stories are often set in Asia. Connor Grennan’s novel Little Princes was set in Katmandu, Nepal. In his book, Connor tells the story of his gargantuan trek across Nepal in an attempt to return seven missing children, all of which belong to a Nepali orphanage he volunteered in. These children were all victims of ruthless child trafficking. Connor’s time in Nepal was laden with obstacles and undesirable living conditions. Therefore, Little Princes presents a dystopian world as a result of poor conditions of the orphanage, the treacherous nature of the mountains and the poorly equipped hospital.
Although poverty has minimized, it is still significant poverty which is characterized by a numerous amount of things. There are two types of poverty case and insular. “Case poverty is the farm family with the junk-filled yard and the dirty children playing in the bare dirt” (Galbraith 236)Case poverty is not irretraceable and usually caused if someone in the household experiences “ mental deficiency, bad health, inability to adapt to the discipline of industrial life, uncontrollable procreation, alcohol, some educational handicap unrelated to community shortcomings” (Galbraith 236).Case poverty is often blamed on the people for their shortcomings but on some levels can be to pinpoint one person's shortcomings that caused this poverty. Most modern poverty is insular and is caused by things people in this community cannot control. “The most important characteristic of insular poverty is forces, common to all members of the community, that restrain or prevent participation in economic life and increase rates of return.
Poverty is not just an issue reserved for third world countries. Instead, poverty is a multifaceted issue that even the most developed nations must battle
Everyone knows what the word poverty means. It means poor, unable to buy the necessities to survive in today's world. We do not realize how easy it is for a person to fall into poverty: A lost job, a sudden illness, a death in the family or the endless cycle of being born into poverty and not knowing how to overcome it. There are so many children in poverty and a family's structure can effect the outcome. Most of the people who are at the poverty level need some type of help to overcome the obstacles. There are mane issues that deal with poverty and many things that can be done to stop it.
Poverty is a tremendous problem in the United States. Unfortunately, many of the families who are living in poverty have much more difficulty finding good jobs than those who are not. In The Working Poor, by David Shipler, there are many different circumstances that cause people to get to that point. Many of those in poverty have too many barriers in their way for them to be able to rise above the poverty line and support themselves. Some circumstances that cannot be avoided like disabilities or being born into a poor household can create biases that make it more difficult to get employment. Seeing what causes many to become impoverished and how some people were able to rise above the poverty line may be beneficial to others and possibly prevent
The documentary, Poor Us: An Animated History of Poverty, takes viewers through a detailed history of poverty on Earth. From hunter-gatherers to modern times, poverty in the world is demonstrated in the documentary. One can ask many questions while watching the documentary such as, “What is poverty?” and “Why does poverty exist today?” These questions are partially answered and speculated on in the documentary, although it may be hard to completely answer the questions as it can be argued that there is no one single answer. Poverty, according to the documentary, is the struggle to obtain resources in order to continue living. These resources are basic needs such as clean water, food, shelter and health care. The documentary, however, argues
Poverty is “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions” (Merriam-Webster dictionary, 2015); in other words, struggling to provide a comfortable living style. It is the cause of family stress and many other problems, especially for the children. Millions of people around the world are struggling with poverty; families suffering to provide enough food seem to be growing in numbers. According to the United States Census Bureau, the poverty rate was highest in the 1960s and decreased greatly in the 1970s. However, it is now slowly starting to increase again. Recently released census data by the Bureau showed that one in five people are living in poverty (Census Bureau, 2014). Poverty is even
Poverty is an undeniable problem in America. In 2014, 14.8 percent of the United States was in poverty (“Hunger and Poverty Fact Sheet”). There are more people in the United States than it seems that do not have their basic necessities. In an
What is poverty? Well, according to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, poverty is "lack of money or material possessions; poor." Two-thirds of the world's population fits this definition. I know that many times we think of being poor as not being able to buy the car we want or take the trip we can only dream about. However, being poor, living in poverty, hits a lot lower than that. For example, a resident of the country of Chad will only bring in $100 each year. Since many people can make more than that in one week, some in one day, can you imagine having the feed a family of five or six, or even a family of two, on only $100 a year? These are the conditions that exist in poverty-stricken countries.
Poverty, also known as the silent killer, exists in every corner of the world. In fact, almost half of the world’s population lives in poverty. According to the United States Census Bureau, there were 46.7 million people living in poverty the year of 2014 (1). Unfortunately, thousands of people die each year due to this world-wide problem. Some people view poverty as individuals or families not being able to afford an occupational meal or having to skip a meal to save money. However, this is not the true definition of poverty. According to the author of The Position of Poverty, John Kenneth Galbraith, “people are poverty-stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls radically behind that of the community”, which means people
Has anyone ever considered thinking about what the world is really going through? How many people don’t have the necessities in order to survive? If so, what are these people going through? Poverty is the state of one who lacks a standard or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. Sometimes events occur that changes a person’s perspective on life. Poverty is one that can have a huge effect on not only one person, but also the people around him/her. Over half of the world is going through this tragedy and we, being the ones who created it, have the responsibility to end it.
Poverty is a global epidemic that contributes to the deaths of millions each year. However, poverty is more prominent in some areas around the world than others. The Oxford dictionary defines poverty as the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support, but it’s so much more. Poverty can be defined as being hungry, lacking shelter, being unable to go to school, being unable to see a doctor, or being powerless and having a lack of freedom. The reason behind the many descriptions of poverty is that poverty has many faces, and its definition changes depending on the place and time, however the effects of poverty on the poor are always the same.