Thursday, February 28, 2008
Francie's Essays
Francie's teacher dismisses her essays about the poor as "sordid." It does seem that many of the characters in the novel have a feeling of shame about being poor. They also exhibit great strength and self- reliance. Katie's mother says she would kill herself and her children before accepting charity. How and why have our society's perceptions of poverty changed over the years?
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2 comments:
I think our society's perception of poverty has changed because there aren't any limits to what a person born into a poor family can do with their lives when they get the chance. Back then, if you were born poor, the accepted truth was that you would be poor for the rest of your life. It's also not as shameful to be poor for most people in today's society and they're able to work hard enough to achieve things that they couldn't in Francie's time.
In the early 1900s, poverty and "sordid" living conditions were accepted because that is what most of society back then lived in. However, today, while there is still much poverty around us, it is looked upon with distaste. We treat it as an infectious disease; if we come to close, it will contanimate us. I believe the difference in our time periods is the value we place in money. Today,we are judged on the amount of money we have. However, back then, you were judged not by the material possesions you owned, but by the pride and character you had. People without money are scoffed at now becasue we blame it on them. It doesn't matter what they were born into, it was their choices and mistakes that lead them to poverty, right? This is where I stongly agree with danilafou. Back then, you were born into it and that is what you will always be. Never anything more. That was the way of life. Have we as a society become so enamored with money that we think that anyone who doesn't have money anymore or never even did, brought poverty upon themselves? Do we think they must have had it coming to them to lose something so precious as money? If we do, our society has not progressed at all since Francie's time.
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