Chitra Divakaruni Live Free And Starve Analysis

She sees the audience as being neutral. Divakaruni takes time to state each side of the argument and provides reasoning for both. She acknowledges that child labor is horrible. If the President signs off on the bill, close to a million children will be unemployed. The audience has the best interest of the children at heart. Divakaruni plays off the audience’s emotions as she describes the hardships the children will face if they were unemployed. The audience is seen as uninformed. Many people only see the negatives of child labor, not the reasoning behind why they’re working. These children work to provide for their families and keep them from starving. Divakaruni helps to show the outcome if America interferes with child

Florence Kelley applies repetition throughout the text by continually referring to her audience as “we.” This use of repetition is key because it builds a sense of unity that is essential for the American people to have in taking on the issue at hand. Through the constant use of “we,” Kelley is able to push the concept that the current state of child labor is not just one man’s problem, it is an American problem. Kelley clearly portrays this message through “We do not wish this. We prefer to have our work done by men and women.” This demonstrates the obvious: nobody

What was your most vivid memory as a child? Was it something you achieved at school or getting a bad grade on a test? Perhaps it was the first time when you finally could ride your bike without training wheels or losing your first tooth. Most children remember their childhood as a happy and free time. In 1997, Chitra Divakaruni published an essay entitled “Live Free and Starve” in Salon magazine that explains how these children are forced not to a happy childhood. “Live Free and Starve” informs the readers how child labor horribly affects the children in the Third World countries. In order to persuade Chitra Divakaruni’s audience, she uses intense imagery, anecdotes, and repetition.

By the early 1900s people started to call child labor, “child slavery”. They want this slavery to end. They argue for kids to have the opportunity to be educated and have a better future. Their hours putting effort on this demand give results when they established in 1912 Children’s Bureau. (Documentation of Child Labor,

Kelley is able to encourage her audience to take action to reform the harshness of the child labor laws through vivid imagery as it evokes empathy throughout her audience. In addition, Kelley successfully uses repetition of the phrase “while we sleep”, when explaining how the children on the East Coast work throughout the night while her audience is asleep. She uses this phrase three times throughout her speech to emphasize how the American citizens are not keeping their eyes open about the issue with all these young children working and manufacturing products for everyone to use. While her audience is able to rest in peace sleeping in their beds at night, there are children forced to work long hours in dangerous conditions just to have enough money for food and water. Kelley highlights how people ignore the facts and are unaware that their comforts in life and what they purchase are made by child laborers.

“Tonight while we sleep…” those little children will be busy working adult like hours, does not that upset you? Due to child labor laws in the United States in the early 20th century, children were working a great quantity of hours during the night time “while we sleep.” In the United States approximately twenty million children are working for their own food because of child labor laws. Florence Kelley, the author of this essay is disgusted by these unjust child labor laws and is empathetic towards the children,but also Kelley is ashamed of the United States rights of women. In this speech, Kelley expresses her loathe feeling towards child labor laws and emphasizes the fact that women cannot vote; in order for them to vote against them.

However, addressing the problem of child labor will require more than recognizing its connection to poverty. Governments, human rights organizations, labor leaders, corporations, and health professionals must all work together to find effective ways to ensure that the world's children are educated and not exploited in jobs in multinational or illegal industries. By proposing this act, it would prohibit U.S. imports of goods produced by children laborer. Such legislation would help third world countries enforce laws against child labor; ultimately, it would protect the world's youngsters from the abusive and hazardous conditions often found in factories that rely on low-wage labor. It would curb poverty by getting these kids out of hazardous, abusive working conditions and into school where they may receive an education and contribute productively to their economy. We look out for animals and prisoners, but fail to protect youngsters from exploitive and abusive labor.

I am writing to you on the behalf of Florence Kelley, a student I have taught since 1890. She hopes to further her education at United States University. Kelley has always been extremely hard-working, empathetic, and compassionate, and strongly believes in the rights of all people, especially women and children. A perfect example of this is when she said, “For the sake of the children, for the Republic in which these children will vote after we are dead, and for the sake of our cause, we should enlist the workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the children from toil” (Wamsley, 1336-1358). In this quote, Kelley was encouraging voters to vote for the abolition or at least limitation of child labor. As one can see, she is very persuasive and deeply cares about her work; she truly wants to free children from suffering due to unnecessary work. This considerate mindset is apparent in her entire work ethic and philosophy.

"If the children themselves were asked whether they would rather work under such harsh conditions or enjoy a leisure that comes without the benefit of food or clothing or shelter, I wonder what their response would be." (Divakaruni 449) "…it seems inconceivable to us that someone could actually prefer bread to freedom." (Divakaruni 449) It is a hard thought to swallow, and I think that is what Divakaruni wants her readers to understand. In paragraph six, Divakaruni describes that when she was young, there was a boy that used to work at her house. His uncle had brought him to her family because his parents were too poor to provide for him. Her mother treated this young boy fairly, providing him with everything that Chitra and her siblings received. Chitra Divakaruni uses this story as an example to show that if an anti-labor law prohibited her mother to hire the young boy, what would he have been left with? Nothing. "Every year, when we went to visit our grandfather in the village, we were struck by many children we say by the mud roads, with their ribs sticking out through the rags they wore…Whenever Nimai passed these children, he always walked a little taller." (Divakaruni 450) If Nimai did not have that job, he would not have a proper shelter, or clothing to wear. Even though he may have only made two dollars a day, which is terrible, he still had a meal on the table waiting

Kelley begins her speech by stating, “We have, in this country, two million children under...states”. Not only does this statement touch upon the issues of child labor, but she establishes credibility by stating factual information. This makes the audience believe that Kelley is knowledgeable about the topic at hand. Kelley continues to state statistics by talking about child labor laws within states to contribute to her credibility. For example, “In Alabama the law …..night.” She includes this information to illustrate the lack of restriction of state laws when it comes to child labor. This information enables the audience to comprehend the foolishness of child labor laws, persuading them to make changes.

It is estimated that one in six of the world’s children are working in unacceptable conditions and that's about 180 million children worldwide (Kilcullen 218). That is a great deal of children that are exposed to harm or exploitation. The opposing side believes that these poor countries need child labor to survive, that it is alright to pay children low wages for the work they do, and do not believe that schooling is as important as work. By regulating child labor laws, governments would be able to enforce safer working conditions, increase wages to meet the cost of living, and mandate education for better opportunities even though the opposing side disputes these reasons and stance.

In her article “Live Free and Starve,” Chitra argues the negative effect of a bill passed to end child labour. The bill is crafted by liberal congressmen wanting to end child labour by banning the import of goods from countries that implore child labourers. Chitra explains that banning the imports from these countries will do more harm than good, affecting the livelihood of the children and their families. Throughout the article, Chitra effectively argues against the bill, showing both the positive and negative impacts the bill would have on third world children and their families. Divakaruni’s uses character, logical, and emotional appeals to aid in her argument against the bill. Her credibility is established by her character appeal; she

Currently there are 168 million child laborers in the world. More than half of them, 85 million, employed at hazardous jobs, according to the International Labour Organization. In the article “In Praise of Cheap Labor Bad jobs at bad wages are better than no jobs at all”, Paul Krugman Professor of economics at MIT, explains that child labor cannot just be wiped away like so many other distasteful practices. That it takes a perfect storm of economic success and low child labor numbers for a full transition to labor laws that ban it. Employers will agree to follow the law; similar to what happened in the U.S. in the 1930’s when Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. This Act established standards for the basic minimum wage and overtime pay. It restricts the hours that children under age 16 can work and forbids the employment of children under age 18 in certain jobs deemed too dangerous. Krugman believes that many developing countries are not at a point where they can support a full ban on child labor. He gives the example of countries like “Indonesia [who are,] still so poor that progress is measured in terms of how much the average person gets to eat” (Krugman 4). Professor of economics at Yale university, Christopher Udry, in his article “Child Labor” provides a definition of child labor as “ the sacrifice of the future welfare of the child in exchange for additional income” (243). The causes of Child labor are not as simple as cultural or economic reasons, and a

"Child labour already exists in Bolivia and it's difficult to fight it. Rather than persecute it, we want to protect the rights and guarantee the labor security of children," said Senator Adolfo Mendoza, one of the bill's sponsors. Many poor families in Bolivia have no other choice than for their kids to work. The bill offers working children safeguards, he also said.

Child labour is a very real problem in the world today, and although it is declining, progress is happening at a slow and unequal pace. Child labour by the International Labour Organization is defined as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development (Diallo, Etienne, & Mehran, 2013, p. 2).” In the most extreme forms of child labour it could account for child enslavement, separation from their families, exposure to serious hazards and illnesses and being left to fend for themselves on the streets (Dinopoulos & Zhao, 2007). In order for certain types of work to be included as “child labour” depends on the child’s age, the type of work,