Analysis : Blue Collar Literature Essay

This generation of women, may it be young or old, are fortunate to live in a country where you can be anything, do anything, and say anything that men can. Although in theory the playing fields are still not completely even, we as a nation have made some substantial progress in women’s rights. Just a few hundred years ago, women livered mundane lives and rarely got to speak up for themselves. In the book, The Midwife’s Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, it follows the life of Martha Ballard through the use of her own diary. Martha Ballard captures the lives of common women in the Early Republic Era by providing an authentic record of the role women played in their communities throughout the developmental years of the United States.

In any successful work of non-fiction, authors employ the use of rhetorical analysis to articulate their main points and ideas. Mike Rose’s essay, “Blue Collar Brilliance,” focuses on the fact that looking down on blue-collar workers is a common occurrence in America and people fail to understand how a person can be intelligent if they had dropped out of school. Throughout the essay, he refutes this notion and explains why blue-collar intelligence may be different from the intelligence gained by years of schooling but it is of the equal stature, since it helps them in their occupation. Rose uses pathos and other rhetorical devices to inform the audience of his belief: blue-collar workers are under appreciated and overlooked as many people fail to see the difficulties and cognitive demands involved in their daily routines at work.

The setting of both stories reinforces the notion of women's dependence on men. The late 1800's were a turbulent time for women's roles. The turn of the century

The Portrayal of the Plight of Women by the Author, In Their Particular Period of Time

Through Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’ we observe 1950’s America where society was predominantly patriarchal with women expected to fulfil domesticated roles; this entailed staying at home to look after the family and women who did work were expected to do maternal jobs such as nursing and teaching.

Writer, Mike Rose, in his rhetorical essay, “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” voices his familiarities with family members that labored blue-collar jobs as well as a few of his occurrences as a student. Persuading his audience, Rose judges that blue-collar jobs require intelligence and that intelligence should not be dignified by the amount of schooling that one has received. Mike Rose not only analyzes his mother, a waitress, but nonetheless of his uncle, who started a job working on the assembly line at General Motors and accomplished enough to become a supervisor. Comparing the lives of his family and the author’s experience in receiving a higher education, Rose describes his experience in observing

In his essay, “Blue Collar Brilliance” Mike Rose claims that “competence was synonymous with physical work.” He addressed this subject because working class citizens were often looked down on for not having a college education. His mother was a waitress at a busy restaurant and from a young age he and his father often watched her at work. He learned his mother had the ability to multitask, manage her time at work and also observe the psychological needs of the people she both worked for and with. I fundamentally agree it does not require an academic education to be considered intelligent.

Towards the end of the 1800s and into the beginning of the 1900s, the roles of women in society and in the family began to change drastically compared to what it had been in the past. Women were now allowed to own land, vote, and do more than cook and clean. Willa Cather and William Faulkner portray the roles of women in the early 1900s in their short stories, “Neighbor Rosicky” and “A Rose for Emily.” These short stories were both published around the year 1930. Because of what was happening in the US at the time, these stories are very good examples of the ways women were treated at this time.

The women of the story are not treated with the respect, which reflects their social standings. The first image of the women that the reader gets is a typical housewife. They are imaged as “wearing faded house dresses and

During the nineteenth and twentieth century there was a number of changes made in America. Woman were looked at as less than back then and to a certain degree they still are today. There was a number of women that died or went insane because of the standards that they had to meet in order to be considered good women. In this research paper I will talk about the experience of the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper and Blanche DuBois from the story A Streetcar Named Desire. It will be shown within these pages how the moral and societal standards for women were far different than they were for men, and how the standards changed over the years. Furthermore it will be shown how this effected the women of those two stories.

Sandberg’s grandmother served as an example that break the stereotypes that showed women as the unimportant, worthless and weakest gender. Her grandmother, who was also called “Girlie”, was born in a poor family which needed more support that’s why she dropped the high school and started working. No one in the community interested whether the woman got an education or not, however boy’s education was the family’s only chance to give financial suppor. When she got married and her husband was having troubles at work as their paint business was struggling, she jumped in and took some of the hard steps and helped to save the family from financial ruin. She also sold knockoff watches to support the clinic where she was treated and she ended up with profit margin that Apple would envy. These examples put together all the images that show the real power of women, their abilities and flexibility to overcome different

There is a Chinese proverb that says, “ Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it.” Steve Olson wrote an essay that talks about that very principle. He titled his essay “Year of the Blue-Collar Guy.” It is about the hard working blue collar guys (BCGs) living in America. Steve Olson is a writer that does not have the usual degrees, awards or publications. Though he has written several books, he says that he is a construction worker. He writes for the average American, so what is Olsen’s purpose in writing about BCGs? To accomplish his purpose I looked at what kind of modes of persuasion he uses, how he responds to the arguing side of his point, and what logical fallacies he uses.

In the novel The Working Poor by David K. Shipler, he wrote about the struggles that people have faced because of their specific position. He interviewed people that were in different situations and with different jobs. There were several women he wrote about that had children and struggled with abusive relationships. There were immigrants that he interviewed that worked in the garment industry. Shipler wrote about people that worked in farms as well. He also wrote about people with criminal records that lacked confidence in themselves to get a job. In the novel The Working Poor written by David K. Shipler, one of the major themes was the death of the American Dream which was represented by characters such as Caroline, Christie, and Candalaria.

Surely, she craved to write—meaning to work here—endangered her husband’s position as an authority. He would not have control any longer toward the narrator—his wife. In the 19th century upper class and middle class women were not expected to earn their own living. Women rarely had careers and most professions refused entry to women. In the middle of the 19th century it was virtually impossible for women to become doctors, engineers, architects, accountants or bankers. After a long struggle the medical profession allowed women to become doctors. It was not until 1910 that women were allowed to become accountants and bankers. However, there were still no women diplomats, barristers or judges. Women were allowed to become teachers majority of women became teaches but this was also a low paying job.

Throughout the ages, women made a larger impact superior to an object owned by men. Some cultures treat their women as cattle, and only in a few have they gained the right for humanistic treatment. During the Great Depression women accepted a role larger than just “housewife”. During the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, men were the patriarchs of the family, when in reality the women were the reason families did not crumble along with the rest of the country. In John Steinbeck’s