What Really Happened To The Working Poor?

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The working poor believed that they can elevate their lives by working hard but they had given up on that ideal for meals and shelter instead which was exactly represented by Chapin. He started feeling more comfortable inside the cell than he ever had being outside but unfortunately after a cocaine induced heroism, he saved the officers on duty and stopped a break out at the same time. He was pardoned and given a recommendation letter that will get him to any kind of work but as it turns out it was easier to live in prison and he tried everything to get himself back in, even taking the fall for stealing a piece of bread from a bakery (Modern np). A tiny cell with a bed and meals to eat is everything he needed and the luxury he could ever imagine …show more content…

A scene from the movie where Chaplin had just found a better job as a night security guard in a shopping mall, the division between the two classes is seen as clear as it can be (Modern np). The upper class can easily afford to buy any kind of clothing they wanted. Also, their clothing are way nicer and more prestigious compared to the working poor, with shirt all torn up and/or having a single change of clothes. The upper class' wardrobe seem to shine and radiate as if to stand out from the crowd. It was either a person have it or they don't, there was no middle ground, either they are poor or rich. Another representation of the struggle of the working poor faced was dehumanization. At the opening scene of the movie the people coming out from the subways was blatantly compared to a herd of sheep being funneled through a small opening of a fence (Modern np). The employers did not look at their employees to be people but instead they see them a part that can be easily replaced by other spare parts; that each one of the workers are just a piece that make up the machine – the line. And because of that, the rise of the Union sparked workers who were once afraid to lose their job to unite and demand better conditions. Threatened that their business would collapse if no workers show up, the employers gave in to the strikers demands which gave way to the worker's rights that comes with benefits that today's workers are freely

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