Rhetorical Analysis Of What Is Poverty Jo Goodwin Parker

What is Poverty?

Jo Goodwin Parker argues what it truly means to be within the poverty, social class in her text, “What is Poverty?”. She does not complain to receive empathy, but more so to draw attention of the poor’s living conditions. Poverty dehumanizes its victims, physically and emotionally. Parker’s aggressive tone is a rhetorical strategy intended to ignite a fire within the reader to not remain “silent” of poverty victims.

Parker begins her essay asking a rhetorical question. “You ask me what is poverty?” (Parker 403). Her aggressive tone in this hook already makes the reader feel uneasy. She wants the reader to visualize her story through her point of view without feeling any pity. Her strongest method is using descriptive writing.

She goes into vivid detail of the daily struggles of people suffering through poverty. She describes her hands become red and crackling from washing clothes in cold water just for the sake of her children’s’ hygiene. The family will sleep on the dingy floor if not trying to squeeze at least four people on a urine-stained and disease ridden mattress. The gnats fly all around the stench of each of the children, in their nose, mouth, and eyes. Conditions get to the point where other parents don’t want her children playing with them. They have illnesses and may turn a dark path of stealing to get what they want and need in life.
Parker uses ethos to make the reader’s feel guilty about what they think poverty is. People will give her blank stares and question why she doesn’t do something about her situation. She explains her process of asking for help. She goes to officer after officers of the government department and tells her story several times. There are health clinics but Parker would need transportation to get there which costs money. In poverty, asking for help is harder than it appears. She vents her problems to the government, who should be of help, but instead direct her attention to a different department.
Being poor was trying to feed to feed a family of four with only a couple of bucks made a month. Washing clothes with warm water and soap was outrageous. Warm water is considered a “luxury” possession; Parker was lucky enough even have water. The effects of being poor are miserable. It leads to illnesses that require medicine which is too expensive. For Parker, it leads to, of course health problems but also divorce and no education for her children. “…I destroyed my marriage. It had been a good one, but could you keep on bringing children in this dirt?” (Parker 405). Like this quote, she makes the reader ask themselves what their choice would have been. Her emotional appeal gives the reader a better understanding of how difficult it was to be poverty.
At the end of the text, Parker concludes her argument by saying, “Look at us with an angry heart, anger that will help you help me. Anger that will let you tell of me. The poor are always silent. Can you be silent, too?” (Parker 407). The purpose of this text was to motivate the reader to do something about poverty. The reason why Parker wrote in such gruesome detail was to get under the reader’s skin. She tries to cry out for help but “the poor are silent”. She needs people to speak out for those who can’t now that the reader knows the truth of poverty.