Steve Ross
Expository
Writing
Dr. Nancy Nester
Final 10/25/96
What do you consider poverty to be? Do you have a definitive explanation of it or
do you consider it an abstract circumstance?
In the article "What is Poverty?", Jo Goodwin Parker gives her
ideas on what poverty is. First given as
a speech, this article is written as an attack on human emotion. Her use of connotative language creates many
harsh images of her experiences in a life of poverty. By using these images, Parker is capable of
causing the 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.
Parker's use of connotative language causes the
reader to feel many emotions. Of these
emotions, a prominent one is guilt.
Parker is capable of making the reader feel guilty for the possessions
that he or she has. For example, she
uses the phrase "You say in your clean clothes coming from your clean
house, ..."(Parker 237). This
causes the reader to feel guilty for having the opportunity to be clean when we
all know that she doesn't have the same.
She calls hot water a "luxury"(Parker 237). To those living in poverty hot water is a
luxury. The unimpoverished take it for
granted and never before considered it anything other than a basic
possession. When the reader hears that
someone else calls it a luxury that they cannot afford, he or she can't help
but feel guilty for having it as a basic possession. Parker also attacks the guilt of the reader
through stories of her children. She
knows that some readers may not feel guilty for things that happen to her, but
when children are introduced to the situation they will feel more guilt. She says, "My children have no extra
books, no magazines, no extra pencils, or crayons, or paper..."(Parker
238). The reader cannot help but feel
guilty for having these basic things when her children, who need them, do
not. Another thing that Parker makes the
audience feel guilty for having is health.
She says, talking about her children, "...most important of all,
they do not have health."(Parker 238).
She goes on further to describe what is wrong with them. Parker says, "They have worms, they have
infections, they have pink-eye all summer"(238). These descriptions of her children cause the
reader to feel horrible for them. By
making the reader feel this way she is increasing the level of guilt the reader
also feels. She is very successful in
accomplishing this and this success causes her argument to become very
powerful.
Not only
does she make us feel guilty for having possessions that she cannot, but Parker
also makes us feel guilty about the stereotypes we hold. She knows what society's stereotypes are and
she successfully combats them. Parker
knows that society thinks the poor don't want to work. To attack this she tells of why she can't
work. She has three children. The last time she had a job the babysitter
she left them with did not take care of them.
She returned to find all three in dangerous situations. Her baby had not been changed since she had
left it there, her other was playing with a piece of sharp glass, and her
oldest was playing alone at the edge of a lake (Parker 236-237). Her chances of finding a better babysitter
are slim because she cannot afford a nursery school due to fact that she makes
too little (Parker 237). This is why she
cannot work. Her inability to work leads
to many of the other stereotypes that society has of the poor. Society questions why the poor cannot be
clean. She tells of how without money
she cannot afford any cleaning supplies (Parker 237). Parker tells of how she saved for two months
to buy a jar of Vaseline and when she had finally saved enough the price had
gone up two cents (237). She cannot wash
in soap because it has to be saved to clean the baby's diapers (Parker
237). She effectively shows how
society's stereotypes are incorrect. She
is capable of making the reader feel guilty for the stereotypes and causes the
reader to question why he or she has them.
If the audience would just take a little time to try and understand her
situation they would know how unfounded the stereotypes are.
Parker is also successful in evoking sympathy
from the reader. She uses connotative
language to create disturbing images of what poverty is. For example, she calls poverty an "acid
that drips on pride until pride is worn away (Parker 239)." Not only is poverty bad but it is an
acid. An acid is a horrible thing. It burns and corrodes away at something until
it no longer exists. By this reasoning
poverty is destroying her life. This
phrase forces the reader to consider poverty as something worse than they had
ever thought before. She shows poverty
as a curse, as a "chisel that chips on honor until honor is worn away
(Parker 239)." Parker starts almost
every paragraph with a new definition of what poverty is. Some examples are:"poverty is being
tired" (Parker 236), "poverty is dirt" (237), "poverty is
asking for help" (237), and "poverty is looking into a black
future" (238). All of these phrases
create a different image of poverty and each one is a success in evoking
sympathy from the reader. They all force
the reader to imagine poverty in a new way.
We all knew it was bad but Parker makes us realize how bleak poverty
is. She shows us that there is no hope
for the poor without understanding.
Parker is successful in getting her point
across with her use of connotative language and her ability to create
images. She has done a good job of
attacking the reader and getting him or her to listen to what she has to
say. Even though she attacks the
audience she does it in an appropriate way whereas she does not come across as
offensive. All in all, Parker has done a
successful job at creating images and using the readers' emotion to get an
audience to listen to her plight and the struggles of other's in her situation.
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