Summary Of Behind The Beautiful Forevers

American authors Barbara Lazear Ascher and Lars Eighner reveal unique relationships between socioeconomic classes and lessons learned from adversity in “On Compassion” and “On Dumpster Diving.”

Beginning her paper with a brief overview of her life growing up in poverty; Beegle shows the reader a firsthand account of how heartbreaking these circumstances are. Revealing that “no one was educated beyond the eighth grade” and “subsisted on menial-wage employment and migrant work”, her family was stuck in the seemingly endless cycle of generational poverty (11). This approach is used to evoke emotion and capture the attention of the readers, allowing the author to more easily begin educating them on the adversity faced by children in poverty. When Beegle did attend college, she describes feeling “fear, humiliation, and insecurity” brought on by the negative interactions with her professors (11). It’s not until she

Patricia Cornwell once said, “The root of all evil is abuse of power”. In Bacigalupi’s novel, The Windup Girl, the author exposes the Thailand government and food companies to be evil due to their abuse of power which led to the destruction of Thailand. Controlled by greed, these groups fought amongst each other for control over Thailand’s seedbank, using any means necessary to complete their goal. As a result, citizens and civilians living in the country got involved in the fighting. Through the use of metaphor, setting, and character, Bacigalupi expresses the message that social injustice endured by the many is often the result of an abuse by the few, showing in this case that it was the actions of the government and food companies that were the cause for the hardships endured by the many.

“Boy that’s all you are, that’s what all of you are. You are a piece of garbage” (P. 66). Trash by Andy Mulligan opens our eyes to the mistreatment of people with a lower status in society due to poverty. Multiple problems are occurring in third world countries all around the globe such as corruption, poverty, and mistreatment. These problems have been brought to light in the book by using a remarkable storyline with a clever use of various language techniques. The storyline of the book is intense and impactful, it tells us about three young boys who were sorting through trash and find something astonishing that would change their’s and many others lives forever.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers uses conflicts to help establish the theme that corruption is one strategy to overcome poverty. One conflict is between Sunil and the orphanage where he was angry to discover that his orphanage is corrupted. Sunil finds out about how the orphanage work for the sole reason of getting money from foreigners, and that money is not implemented on the orphanage kids. Instead that money is for the nuns personal use. This shows that even an orphanage and a Handmaid, the least expected, uses the opportunity to be corrupted and survive from their own poverty. When the author was describing Sunil, she says, “He(Sunil) knew why he and the other children received ice cream only when newspaper photographers came to visit, and

Katherine Boo, a staff writer at The New Yorker and former reporter and editor at The Washington Post, has worked for over two decades “reporting within poor communities, considering how societies distribute opportunity and how individuals get out of poverty” (Boo 257). In November 2007, she and her husband, an Indian citizen, moved from the United States to India to study a group of slum dwellers in Annawadi, Mumbai (Boo 249). While studying this group of individuals in India from 2007 to 2011, Boo’s goal was to learn why the individuals within this slum have not banded together against a common enemy in order to gain upward mobility. She illustrates several common issues of developing nations including: corruption, education, the mismanagement of foreign aid, and the possibility for social mobility in her book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers. In this literary work, Boo accurately portrays the acts of corruption and as well as how corruption has entered the sphere of education, which is typically an individual’s only avenue to social mobility and success in that area. She argues that instead of rising up against a higher power, the individuals within the slum fight against one another to get a leg up on their competition, even if it keeps them in the same social class.

Andy Mulligan’s “Trash” deals with challenging issues, including poverty and children living in third world countries. He uses setting descriptions and rich characters in this book to help the reader to understand poverty and third world countries as it helps the reader to understand the themes in the book. Poverty and third world countries are also presented to the reader as Mulligan uses different language techniques throughout the book like the description of the dumpsite. Sensory language and imagery are the techniques that Mulligan uses to cause the reader to almost physically feel some or all the five senses that Mulligan intends to share with his audience.

“I am not a social worker. I am not a teacher, even. That is my fear, you know, that I really can’t do anything. Helping them to get and education is not going to do anything, but without help they are doomed (Born into Brothels, 2004).” Zana Briski made this statement in her documentary Born into Brothels, referring to the children of sex workers in Sonagachi. This statement exemplifies child saving, a dominant theme in children’s discourse, that portrays children as vulnerable, innocent, and in need of “saving” from poverty and immorality according to a view of a universal childhood (Wells, 2009, pg.28). Child saving efforts remove children from their homes and families and place them in new homes or schools to discursively separate them

Eighner himself has lived on the streets as a homeless man. He allows the reader to join him in his own personal life stories in order to show the severity of his past situation. Eighner tells of the embarrassment and shame that comes from scavenging through trash to stay alive. He writes of the woeful feelings that a homeless person possesses in their time of wander. “He can wipe the egg yolk off the found can, but he cannot erase the stigma of eating garbage out of his mind” (Eighner 144). With much passion, he speaks of the homeless as victims of a undeserved life. However, according to Linderman, the life of a dumpster diver can be quite satisfying.

The second theme of Human Geography in this book/film is the location on where they live. It’s in a run-down place where there is garbage everywhere, especially in Wasteland. Because of where they live, most of the people pick garbage up in order to make money for themselves. It isn’t the safest place to live. For example, “Annawadi kids were always getting hit on the chaotic roads- usually, while crossing a treacherous intersection to get to Marol Municipal School” (Boo, 63). People are always getting in fights or killing their selves because of the people around them and the environment in which they live. That isn’t always their own fault, though.

Andy Mulligan's ‘Trash’ deals with challenging issues, including children living in third world countries and poverty. Mulligan uses language techniques as well as rich characters and setting descriptions to help educate readers about poverty. Language techniques, such as sensory language and imagery language, and setting descriptions were used to make the reader feel the impact of these situations. Mulligan also uses rich characters in the novel to assist in informing the reader about poverty and issues in third world countries.

The “garbage business” consists of gathering airport garbage and recycling. He had to roam the airport roads and retrieve objects others tossed away. He was a “lawful” scavenger. However, he had to change his profession when the American recession occurred. People in the garbage business had to resort to stealing metal. Sunil postponed certain burglaries as a way of procrastinating since he was terrified. He was risking his life to provide food. A child having to support his younger sibling is shocking. The author explains why. Sunil has to immediately assume the parental role of supporting himself and his sister, mainly because his father had only occasional work and then drank his wages. Often he never bothers to work, he is constantly drunk, and has no relationship with Sunil or his daughter. We discover Sunil has to take control and responsibility beginning at the age of seven. Now at thirteen, he is fully responsible for his younger sister. He emphasizes he works daily, unlike his father who occasionally works. Yet we see the small boy when he states that “when he was small, he’d lost his sister for a week, but he has been careful not to misplace her after that.” We see a boy at a very young age assume complete responsibility for his sister, which means that he by in large no longer can be a child. He no longer can get an education. It is shocking how he states he lost his sister when he

The city of Mumbai has seen much growth in the past years. A string of elegant hotels have been set up for travelers and high-class business men. An ever growing, top of the line airport has been built for those coming in and out of the country. From the outside, Mumbai seems to have taken a liking to being internationally integrated with the rest of world, otherwise known as globalization. This is not the case, however; as seen in Katherine Boo’s novel Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. This novel is set in a slum right next to the Mumbai International Airport called

The novel Trash, by Andy Mulligan, is a very controversial and emotional book. Trash makes readers wonder why poverty to this extreme is still happening in the world, despite everything people are trying to do to stop poverty. I recently participated in a book club meeting, about Trash, and have grown as a person because of it. In my opinion, during our book club meeting, the members of my book club enriched, challenged, and reinforced my ideas, beliefs, and opinion on Trash. My top three discussion moments were whether or not police discrimination, and corruption is the primary cause of extreme poverty in some regions and extreme wealth in some, whether or not it is every ok to steal, and lastly whether or not Gardo and Raphael’s aunt should be able to stay at home while the two young boys work in a garbage dump.

In the novel “Village By The Sea” by Anita Desai, focus mainly on the social dynamics and it condition in which the children lives. The book deals with the rural life and the lower classes of society. Anita Desai criticizes the society not taking better care of those who are unable to care for themselves. It is incredibly hard to write a book about such deep topics as poverty and the hope of life, especially with children as main characters. It is a unique blend of description and a good story of hope, despair, poverty and how life can change with the simplest of things. In this novel we experience the impact of the modern technological development on a traditional community of fishermen and farmers at Thul. And also problems faced by in Indian