Keith IB English III Pereira 12/15/12 The House of the Spirits Essay In Isabel Allende’s novel The House of the Spirits, there are two definitive classes of people that are present throughout the novel. The poor class, including the peasants of Tres Marias and the socialist party members, has continual resentment towards the other class, which is the wealthy aristocratic class. The wealthy division of the novel shows little humanity towards the poor, treats the poor as servants, and control all politics involved in the country. The wealthy’s treatment of the lower class shattered the peace experienced by Chile because the poor and the wealthy maintained a struggle to co-exist with such division between their …show more content…
This attitude that the wealthy class has for those in the book ignites the resentment felt by the poor class that resounds in the rest of the story. The inequality that is present between these two classes is unbelievable throughout the book that even parts of the wealthy class begin to realize the damage that their right wing government has caused to the lower division of Chile. Even Esteban Trueba’s immediate family senses the problems that the poor face. “[Clara] now took Blanca with her on her visits to the poor, weighed down with gifts and comfort. ‘This is to assuage our conscience, darling,’ she would explain to Blanca. ‘But it doesn 't help the poor. They don 't need charity, they need justice’” (136). Because of this unequal treatment of the classes and the resentment that the poor held for the wealthy, the two classes could not continue to co-exist. The incessant struggle that the lower class faced when the wealthy controlled everything forced them to begin a revolution so that they can finally take control of their own lives instead of living to please the wealthy. Throughout the novel, the wealthy controlled every part of the country’s government and therefore, they controlled the country as a whole until the day that Esteban Trueba lost the election and the socialist party came to power. This is when the poor finally ceased to be dominated by the wealthy. “They lit torches, and the jumble of voices and dancing in the streets became a disciplined,
Supposedly, both the individuals with ascribed statuses with hereditary wealth and the poor and homeless have equal chances to become successful although, Orestes Bronwnson in The Laboring Classes, pointed out that this is not true. “Do the young man inheriting ten thousand pounds and the one whose inheritance is merely the gutter, start even?” (219). As a result, the harsh separation of the rich and the poor, where capitalism thrives and,” the division of the community into two classes, one which owns the funds…the other provides the labor” (216). The inhumane apprehension of a capitalist society that keeps its workers “in a permanent system, [has] given preference to the slave system” (214) says a lot about the evils of capitalism corresponding with the false American Dream. An outcome of capitalism is the frustrating rivalry between the poor. “There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining the country. The competition is maddening”
In both of these literary works, the low socioeconomic status of the main characters is made well known to the reader early on. This status is
Everyone knows that poverty can lead to feelings of shame and humiliation, but what many people don’t realize is that sometimes overwhelming feelings of shame and humiliation lead to poverty. In her article “In the Search of Identity in Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street,” Maria de Valdes goes as far as to refer to shame and poverty as a “syndrome” because she believes they’re so closely associated. “It is a closed circle,” Valdes asserts. “You are poor because you are an outsider without education; you try to get an education, but you can’t take the contrastive evidence of poverty and ‘it keeps you down.’” In other words, poverty and shame are an endless cycle because a person will be ashamed to be impoverished, but won’t be able to move up because shame will always hold them back. This can be seen in Esperanza’s mother, who didn’t finish school because she was too ashamed that she didn’t have nice clothes like the other girls. “Shame is a bad thing, you know,” she warns Esperanza. “It keeps you down” (91). Shame kept her down by preventing her from finishing school, and in turn her lack of education kept her from pursuing her dreams. Instead, she settled into the housewife life, which she still regrets: “I could’ve been somebody, you know” (91). She says it sadly, like she’s mourning the loss of what
The events of the play reveal that most people in the upper-middle class (Mr and Mrs Birling and Gerald) look down on the lower class with derision (‘girls of that class’) and the only middle class person in the play (the Inspector) seems to detest the upper-middle class because he believes in socialism.
In The Paradise of the Bachelors and Tartarus of Maids Melville demonstrates how the oppressive power of the upper class over the working class, molds and kill the social, emotional and physical life of the working class while they benefit from it. Melville depicts how industrialism created an economic separation of classes that although seemed unrelated and contradictory in their different spaces, both sustained each other. The upper class, the bachelors, needed the labor of the lower class to maintain the wealthy life they had and the lower class, the maids, survived with the small wages gained with their labor. In order for the upper class to continuously enjoy their privilege, they had to exploit in any way possible the working class.
In “Machuca”, we realize the extremities of differences between the different classes in the Chilean society, rooted mainly due to the lack of satisfaction of the two classes in the Socialist Unidad Popular Government. “The key to this interpretation is found in another important scene that takes place midway through the movie. There is a meeting at the school so that the parents of the students may have an opportunity to discuss the experiment of mixing children of different social classes. The discussion is mainly between liberals and conservatives – all of them middle or upper middle class – those who are in favour and those who are against the ‘experiment’. The parents of the poor students are standing at the back of the room (a chapel) and listen without taking part in the discussion, until the moment when Pedro’s mother dares to speak out. For a moment we can hear the subaltern’s voice, whose story is the history of primitive accumulation and of the worker’s continuous separation from the means of production, the history of pure and naked exploitation” (Martín-Cabrera & Voionmaa, 2007). She speaks about how the condition of the poorer sections of the
All of the townspeople use social class prejudice against those who are not wealthy and rather poor. Aunt Alexandra joins the
From the start the novel is laden with the pressures that the main characters are exposed to due to their social inequality, unlikeness in their heredity, dissimilarity in their most distinctive character traits, differences in their aspirations and inequality in their endowments, let alone the increasingly fierce opposition that the characters are facing from modern post-war bourgeois society.
Take everything you know about racism, sexism, and religionism and toss it out the window, because there’s an impediment to prosperity that is often underlooked: Classism. Classism is a suppression which always has and always will continue to affect our everyday lives. The disparities that presently exist between the lower and higher classes form a condition where it is unlikely to allow for equality for anyone. The short stories “A Rose of Emily,” written by William Faulkner, and “Desiree’s Baby,” written by Kate Chopin, offered several depictions of classism within a society. “A Rose for Emily” recounts the life of an isolated, aristocratic woman named Emily Grierson who symbolically represents the demise of the old Southern society. Similarly, “Désirée’s Baby” portrays classism present in mid-nineteenth century Southern society in conjunction with the inequalities that exist between race. Class prejudice plays an important role as it was behind the emergence of the characters’ unspeakable actions. In “A Rose for Emily” and “Desiree’s Baby,” classism is emphasized and provokes arrogance, denial, and the demise of others.
It seemed that Favelados had given up and settled for the life they were given. They either knew the politicians would never do much for the impoverished or secretly hoped that someone would eventually help them. If there had been a revolutionary leader similar to Fidel Castro, only then would the impoverished have a chance to rise against the extreme inequality. (De Jesus, preface Vll) Carolina could have represented that leader. If she had gained the support of all the favelados there could have been a potential revolution. She was strong but was also full of bitterness and discontent. It is as though she carried the displeasure of an entire population. It has often been stated that dissatisfaction usually leads to rebellion. The favelados were similar to the people of Mexico that expressed this discontent through revolution. (Charlip & Burns, 192) Child in the Dark also shows traces of The House of the Spirits. Much like Clara Del Valle, Carolina represented the missing piece of the puzzle. She represented the hope that so many favelados lacked. She showed aspects that others in the favela had stopped possessing. She was caring and giving towards others even if she herself had so little. This was seen when Carolina was on her way to sell the paper she collected and noticed the African American man that was on the ground. Even though she
To begin, many of the characters in this novel tried their very hardest to make it appear they were of a higher social class, but never became what they
While they were only getting richer with their corrupt methods, the poorer classes were getting poorer because of the money they spent on the capitalists’ goods. In “The Robber Barons of Today, 1889”, the robber barons are seen with their “knightly” attire while the poor pay “tribute” to them. (Doc D) It represents the poor paying the “amazing” capitalists and being subservient for the goods they need. Also, in Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, 1879, it said that the gulf between the classes is getting wider and wider. Because of the industrial tycoons taking the poor’s money, they are getting richer. They are also providing fewer jobs since the industries usually have one major company for a particular manufacturing, and so “the poorer class is becoming more dependent” on the capitalists to provide jobs and goods. (Doc A) The robber barons took the poor’s money to become wealthier and to feed their greed while worsening the gap between the social
This highlights how both lower classes see that there is no solution to their problems other than to rid their worlds of the upper classes through their own
No matter where you go in the world, people are divided. They can be divided by their wealth or state of living these are social class. In the novel “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton social classes a very apparent the rich and the poor. In The Outsiders, social classes create a divide in the community. The isolation of these two groups leads to the tension and violence that is seen in the book.
Young children are often told by their parents to ’not judge a book by its cover’. The Shining Houses by Alice Munro explores the idea that it is unessential to conform to societal standards especially when they stand in the way of equality. The theme responsibility towards our community is prevalent throughout the story and we see that despite the popular opinion of everyone else we have a responsibility towards the wellbeing of our community members. Through the character of Mary, we see the importance of helping one another. Most of the people who lived on Mrs. Fullerton’s street were not fond of her because of the way he home looked however, Mary overlooked this and enjoyed spending time with her. She befriended Mrs. Fullerton because