ENGL 240 Week 1 Initial discussion post PDF

Preview

Summary

Written communications ll ENGL 240 Discussion post week 1...

Description

ENGL240 Initial discussion post

Week 1 Discussion Forum Provide an analysis of the nonfiction essay "What Is Poverty" downloadby Jo Goodwin Parker. This is not a summary; make sure that you offer an interpretation of the essay and that you “read between the lines" in order to address each aspect of analysis:      

Audience Purpose Content Mood Style Structure

This essay written by Jo Goodwin Parker illustrates the challenges and difficulties she had experienced while experiencing poverty. She wants you to understand her world and feel it with all of your senses. I don’t think she wrote this essay to address the wealthy or middle-class audience but to anyone who has not gone through the level of poverty she has suffered through. She may want recognition for her struggle and those who have suffered like she has. Her main purpose is to show how humiliating and disgusting it is to live in poverty and that those who are very poor seem to relinquish themselves to being disheartened and apathetic. Or as she puts it, “The poor are always silent” because they have nothing to say? Of course, they have something to say, but choose to remain quiet. She adds that the poor are always polite and always listen, but they decide not to say anything about their plight, because in her eyes, what is the point to speaking up, since it will not make any difference. She makes it clear that without money you can’t pay the rent, have access to power and hot water, fix things that are broken, or have access to a variety of foods that have more nutrition. She paints a bleak, dark world that lacks any hope and suppresses any chance to be happy and content with her life. I believe that her secondary purpose of her essay is to stir up emotions and guilty feelings in the reader that will persuade them that poor people must be helped because their situation makes it difficult or impossible for them to climb out from the grip of poverty alone. I felt that she used a very angry tone to have the readers understand what emotions she was going through in her battle with poverty. It is also notable that she begins half of the paragraphs in her essay with the words “Poverty is” as a stylistic means of further drawing the attention of the readers who have already made an investment in her story and who have become engrossed with her vivid descriptions of life and surroundings.

The content of her essay appears to be mainly informative with her graphic description of her environment and daily routines which immerses you into her world with relentless detail. The essay is also persuasive in that she wants people to understand what abject poverty is like and to show how shameful and humiliating it is. On a personal level, her essay made me think introspectively about how my situation contrasts with hers and about social class status in general. How such a disparity can exist in this country, but her essay represents America half a century ago. I looked at how I have it so good in comparison and never thought about all of the conveniences that I have access to that I take for granted. Her essay may convince some people to help or perhaps drive away those who feel uncomfortable or indifferent to her situation....