The Pursuit Of The American Dream Ehrenreich Analysis

In a New York Times article, “Too Poor to Make the News,” author Barbara Ehrenreich focuses on the impact the recession has caused to the lives of the working poor. She begins her article by describing how the newly group, known as Nouveau poor, have to give up valuables where as the working poor have to give up housing, food, and prescription medicines. Ehrenreich’s purpose is to inform her readers who are blessed enough not to suffer like the working poor. Barbara Ehrenreich’s article examines the impacts the recession has on the lives of the working poor, by demonstrating pathos, and makes readers aware of the sufferings the poor have to face. Barbara Ehrenreich examines the aspects that are impacting the working poor from the recession.

The working poor are a class of people that have their own culture that can only be understood through full participation in it; without proper acquaintance with their lifestyle, the working poor cannot be adequately examined or criticized. The author is skilled and effective in delivering her opinion of the working poor in the United States at the time; she includes numerous details and examples as support. The first paragraph of the piece is a long description of the restaurant, Jerry’s, and its conditions. This passage serves as one of the many visuals that she includes to evoke thought from the reader. Ehrenreich uses the passage to support her claims and opinions of the restaurant and the working poor as a whole.

In the article “How I Discovered the Truth about Poverty” Barbara Ehrenreich gives her view in poverty and explains why she think Michael Harington’s book “The Other American” gives a wrong view on poverty. She explained that Harrington believes that the poor thought and felt differently and what divides the poor was their different “culture of poverty.” Ehrenreich goes on to explain on how the book that became a best seller caused so many bad stereotypes on the poor that by the Reagan era poverty was seen as “bad attitudes” and “faulty lifestyles” and not by the lack of jobs or low paying jobs. And they also viewed the poor as “Dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to “defer gratification,” or possibly even set an alarm clock.”

Verbal irony through a sarcastic tone strengthens the central claim since many people respond well to being addressed in a more satirical, direct manner. Barbara continues discussing the Maids, “no one is going to say, after I vacuum ten rooms and still have time to scrub the kitchen floor, “Goddamn, Barb, you’re so good!”” (Ehrenreich 117). The fact that the middle-class doesn’t even understand the amount of hard work that is done addresses the subclaim of how hard life is while working minimum wage, or close to it, jobs, while still using a sarcastic tone. The audience of middle-class Americans will most likely put down this memoir feeling a call to action to change the operation of the treatment of these trapped

She begins by talking about her college experience of how her own professors and fellow students believed and “always portrayed the poor as shiftless, mindless, lazy, dishonest, and unworthy” (Paragraph 5). This experience shocked her because she never grew up materialistic. She brings up the fact that she is the person with the strong and good values that she has today because she grew up in a poor family. In culture, the poor are always being stereotyped.

One of the best-selling authors, Barbara Ehrenreich, in her narrative essay, “Serving in Florida,” describes her personal experience working in a local restaurant called Jerry’s. Ehrenreich’s purpose is to attach importance to the low-wage America workplace. Using rhetorical strategies such as negative diction, simile, images, and pathos, Ehrenreich attempts to raise public awareness of the low-wage workers’ life in her readers. Firstly, Barbara Ehrenreich exploits connotation of words and simile to emphasize the difficult life of the lower class.

The amount of time spent with something will change your views and thinking, that is what Barbara Ehrenreich and Lars Eighner share in their papers. Both had low status jobs after having a college education and their work is similar, yet opposites in some ways. The difference is that in Ehrenreich’s, “Serving in Florida”, she believes that restaurant waitressing jobs are degrading to workers because she only had one experience for research and had to stick with it for a short time that she chose, it was unnecessary work to her. While in Eighner’s, “On Dumpster Diving”, he thinks of them as a privilege and enjoyable because he had no other choice than his line of work, he had to put up with being homeless for 3 years to survive without any help.

Jennifer L. Hochschild describes the American dream as “the soul of the nation.” She clearly illustrates the importance of the dream to American culture. So, what is the American dream according to Hochschild? She was referring to John Locke and his fantasy, then said “But the sentence evokes the unsullied newness, infinite possibility, limitless resources that are commonly understood to be the essences of the “American dream.” She also pointed out the flaws in the American dream and how at times the pursuit of it can lead to counterproductive outcomes not just for the individual but society as a whole.

The American Dream is almost purely run by structural forces, in her perspective, that are constantly attempting to impede the middle class’ ability for upward mobility. Those who are impoverished are there because of their surroundings, the institutions that shape their lives and therefore, they simply cannot find any way out of the poverty trap in which they have found themselves. While Ehrenreich was conducting her case study, she attempted to determine if the American Dream was by attempting to immerse herself in the culture of the poor. She only did so partially due to several stipulations that she set for the experiment as she stated that she would not live in a shelter (Shepard did), that she would not get rid of her vehicle and rely on public transportation (Shepard also did this); however, she did note that even for her, being partially immersed as she was, still found there to be not much difference between herself and those that worked around. She believed, from her experiences, that the social structure of the employment opportunities, was a systematic way to dehumanize the workers.

The American dream is a dream of a land in which one can prosper with ambition and hard work. This idea has created many illusions for some because in reality the American dream is proven to be something that is rarely achieved. No individual is guaranteed success or destined for failure, but it is apparent that women, people of color, and those born into poverty will face greater obstacles than others, despite being a greater part of the American population. An author that tackles the issue of class in the United States is Gregory Mantsios. In his essay, “Class in America-2009”, Mantsios aims to prove that class affects people’s lives in drastic ways.

Argumentative Text Essay In the book Nickel and Dimed, written by Barbara Ehrenreich, the author argues how challenging it is to live in a life of poverty. To prove to herself as well as others that this statement is accurate, she makes the decision to experience this lifestyle firsthand by taking low-wage jobs and recording the results. Ehrenreich took on jobs including a maid service, waitressing, and assisting the nursing home to make enough money for a place to sleep and food to eat. The work’s central argument is the fact that minimum and low wage workers face a myriad of difficulties in getting by in America; they receive very low pay, harsh treatments from their employers, and the inability to have an actual life.

As a reader reads Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed on (Not) Getting by in America, they get an insight on what it is like to live a low income life. Ehrenreich proposes the argument in the introduction that poverty is a serious matter and just because one has a job does not mean they are not considered poor. She wants to persuade us to realize that American is not the land of opportunity as promised and portrayed and there are regular people who are struggling to live a comfortable life. Throughout her book she mentions her experiences with living on minimum wage, the hiring process, and how she felt being put in that position. After reading Ehrenreich’s book I am thoroughly persuaded.

No matter who you are or where you have come from, you have undoubtedly heard of the American Dream. The idea that no matter who you are or where you have come from, you can do whatever it is you desire in America. What was once one the main driving forces for immigrants to flock to the new world, has slowly changed over the years, but still holds its value in the eyes of those who are looking for a promising new place to live. The American dream might not hold the same awe inspiring sound that it once did, but for many generations before ours it was a beacon of hope that helped build the foundation that the United States was built on. And, still, today the American dream might not be as achievable as it once was, but it is still an important

Isabel Wilkerson gives an example in her June 12, 2005 article “A Success Story That's Hard to Duplicate,” how Angela Whitiker’s has gone from welfare statistic to the middle class. She quoted Walter Allen, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles who said, ‘She reflects a Horatio Alger kind of American dream story. The great news is that her efforts and initiative were rewarded. She got herself credentialed. The bad news is how challenging and how difficult it is to replicate her path’ (Allen).

Incompetent laborers in the class—dishwashers, clerks, house keepers, and servers—more often than not are come up short on and have no open door for professional success. They are regularly called the working poor. Gifted laborers in this class—craftsmen, handymen, and circuit testers—are regularly called industrial specialists. They may profit than specialists in the white collar class—secretaries, educators, and PC experts; in any case, their employments are typically more physically exhausting, and at times very