The Theme Of Poverty In 'Fly Away Home' By Eve Bunting

In Diana George's essay "Changing the Face of Poverty," she explains how the issue of poverty in the United States is misinterpreted. Diana argues that organizations with the primary goal of eradicating global poverty may be the ones contributing to the problem they're fighting against. I can agree with George that Americans have some over simplistic views and stereotypes which then “often fail to overturn cultural commonplaces that represent poverty as an individual problem that can be addressed on an individual basis.” (678) In order to overcome poverty organizations such as Habit need to move past using “the most common understandings of poverty in America." (680)

Society likes to think that the world revolves around them, people complain about small events such as, not having situations result as wanted. There are things in this world that will never stop existing; poverty is something that has always been around, for some people it is worse than others.“Flavio’s Home” by Gordon Parks, published 1990 was inspired by his autobiography, voices in the mirror. The essay gives a perfect example of what extreme poverty is like. Even though there are difficult times in life, no matter what, just keep going. “Flavio’s Home” did use ethos as a rhetorical appeal but was mainly focused in using pathos. Those who would most likely relate to this essay are people who have experienced tough situations. What Gordon showed as his main concern or issue throughout the whole story was how poorly cared for flavio and his family were.

There were approximately 45.3 million people in poverty in 2013. This number went up 37.3 million since 2007. (DeNavas-Walt 2014, p. 12). The number of poor individuals is the largest it has been in the 52 years. In Ruth Sidel essay “Women and Children Last: The Plight of Poor Women in Affluent America”, she talks about the public misunderstandings about America's poor society. Women should be helped equally, but Sidel does not focus enough on women helping themselves. Sidel assumes that being poor just unexpectedly happens to the female population. In the reading she uses real life stories of women. One reoccurring theme is that the men in their life left them or fail to help them out with the children. Poverty includes more than single women with children. People that are elderly and can’t work is included, disabled and handicapped veterans or people in the army are included. Women make up some of the poverty population, but men makes up the other part. In 2013, there were 14,704,900 poor women and 10,990,100 poor men according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Poverty isn’t just surrounded around women; men and children are included.

Poverty is a main part of life for many people in the world, more specifically the United States. Jeanette Walls displays how immense of a problem poverty is in her memoir, “The Glass Castle”, with her stories of how she grew up and her family’s struggles. How her family was treated along with what the people living around them found important unmistakably shows their economic class. The problem of food scarcity, or not having the bare necessities are some of poverty’s key problems. In “The Glass Castle”, the issues of poverty are displayed through not having the basic necessities, not being able to provide for children, and how there is not always enough food to feed everyone in the family.

In Janet Poppendieck's “Want Amid Plenty: From Hunger To Inequality” she argues that America puts excessive focus upon hunger issues among the poor when there are many other important issues that go unnoticed. Poppendieck believes that it is time to find a way to shift the discourse from undernutrition to unfairness, from hunger to inequality. In today's society, there are many food banks, food drives, soup kitchens, etc. Food is extremely abundant in America, therefore Poppendieck's statement is proven true when she states that there is too much focus on hunger. Throughout this text, she strongly supports her claims about hunger, equality, and poverty in general.

In our country, hundreds of people are apprehended every day for misdemeanors crimes. Our local justice system will then charge these individuals with fines that can be as much as $2,000 or more. Failure to pay this said fine can immediately result in potential jail time. Yet, if you can pay your bail, you will spend no more than 24 hours in a local facility. Many of these people are poor, while the remainder of these people tends to be middle to upper-class citizens.

'Fly Away Peter' is essentially a story about life. Through the life of Jim Saddler the reader becomes aware of the ideas posed by the author, David Malouf. Jim's life, if anything, is indeed a journey, unfolding through various broadening experiences that lead to Jim's eventual understanding of the world and his own self. However, to simply say that this understanding is enhanced solely by his contact with those around him is only true to a certain extent. Jim's journey of life exists on many levels, just one of which is the lessons he learns through his contact with others.

In Ruby Payne's “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” she endeavors to provide educators with strategies to teach children from poor families, but Ruby Payne went wrong when she just took a mental image from a classroom and began analyzing on what she saw without enough evidence, her principal message was that poverty is not simply a monetary condition. She describes it to her audiences as a culture with particular rules, values, and knowledge transmitted from one generation to the next.

In Diana Georges “Changing the Face of Poverty”, she uses various examples of ads, brands, and organizations  to show that the way poverty is portrayed has corrupted the understanding Americans have on poverty and what it really is. I agree with Diana George’s statement that the impression of poverty through visual imagery is distorted. Her essay examines many aspects of the misrepresentation of poverty. Society believes that they are doing more than what is actually being accomplished. The effect of her explanation allows for the audience to alter their opinion on the true image of poverty. Her use of real organizations within the community strengthens her approach.

“It is not the rich man you should properly call happy, but him who knows how to use with wisdom the blessings of the gods, to endure hard poverty, and who fears dishonor worse than death, and is not afraid to die for cherished friends or fatherland.”

In the article Rich and Poor, Peter Singer sees extreme poverty as “not having enough income to meet the most basic human needs for adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, health care or education” (pg. 234). Singer does not fail to compare those in extreme poverty to people who are living in absolute affluence. He suggests that it is the responsibility of those living in affluence to help those who are in need of obtaining even the basic human needs. He also argues that the affluent not helping is the moral equivalency of murder. Singer realizes that even though the rich can give to the poor these resources that they need, the rich do not feel enough of a moral mandate to do so. I disagree a bit with Singer because he seems to suggest that everyone who has the basic necessities is morally obligated to give but, I believe that this idea of a moral mandate to give should only apply to the extremely wealthy. Like Singer’s first premises says “If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it.” (243) If the absolute affluent have large amounts of money, they can help to at least make people live comfortably without losing anything of great significance. The increasing poverty rates, not just in America but, globally cannot be solved if the extremely wealthy continue to do wasteful spending and choose to not put their money more towards programs and charities that better the lives of the people in their

“Poverty” (Armut) understood as Benjamin does in “Experience and poverty” has a double meaning here. On one hand, it may be interpreted as an allusion to the uncontrollable economic inflation, the shortage of raw materials, and a moral impoverishment derived from the belic experience . On the other hand it may be understood as a break in the transmission of experience (Erfahrung) (Benjamin takes experience as a synonym of knowledge). In other words, there has been a rupture in the tradition passed down from elder generations. This rupture happens when the appropiation becomes impossible. According to Benjamin, this would have dramatically happened during the First World War, when people went to war. There, soldiers faced a reality that the

The theme of this book is that the human capacity to adapt to and find happiness in the most difficult circumstances. Each character in the novel shows this in their way. For instance, their family is randomly taken from their home and forced to

In the movie “Sold”, we watch a once young and hopeful girl turned into a sex slave who is beaten, drugged, and raped every day. How does this happen, and so quickly? People like Mumtaz and Bimla are wired to manipulate families into giving up their children, and sadly for some families it may not be a difficult decision. The level of poverty in places like India and Nepal are beyond the understanding of most people in America, especially those living in the middle and upper classes. By our values, selling a child is the most awful thing we can do; but in places like India, who don’t have the same welfare programs we do, starvation of the whole family is much worse. Family structure is also much different here than other countries. Here,

American factories can comprise of about up to 1000 workers. If American factories are shut down and moved to other countries, this takes many American people out of work. Companies are now also importing jobs. This is where employers hire people such as immigrants to work less than minimum wage. For that reason, many Americans are stuck with the other minimum wage, and low-paying jobs that barely get them through life. Because of this, many Americans are working full time jobs that are below the Federal poverty line. These types of people are often called the “working poor”. Due to this the working poor have to run to welfare. This affects all Americans because taxpayers are the ones paying for welfare. The more jobs that are taken