The Struggles Of Poverty In Gordon Parks's 'Flavio's Home'

This essay was very successful in giving insight of what families in beyond low income communities go through on a daily basis. His fight against poverty is very real and that gave him the ability to connect to his essay emotionally. With all the Parks witnessed, he strives to let his own governments see that there should be more people helping these other countries or even within his own country. Doing what he could for one person made a big difference in Flavio and his family’s life. He was bale to get him out of the are he was in and into a different class that would potentially save their

Kozol begins the book by providing a backdrop of where he met many of the families, in the welfare hotel Martinique Hotel in December 1985. The Martinique Hotel was initially advertised as a temporary living facility, or a shelter, where “1400 children and about 400 of their parents struggled to prevail” (Kozol, pg 3). Families in these welfare hotels fell prey to the corrupt Koch administration that “took advantage of Federal emergency housing funds to put them up in hotels” after demolishing other low-income homes (Anonymous, 1989). In the Martinique he illustrates the inhumanities that occurred on a daily basis such as robberies, sex trafficking, substance use and the described the decrepit living conditions where the residents resided. Kozol identifies a family, Pietro Locatello, whom sought shelter at the Martinique. Although Pietro tries his hardest to provide safety and inclusiveness in his small one bedroom hotel room he is unable to save his son, Christopher, from the allure of, what begins as pan-handling for change, to potentially being sex trafficked and involvement lifelong

The populist governments, seen in the 1950’s and 1960’s in South America, spurred industrial growth and a sense of “consciousness” amongst the inhabitants of the Latin American countries. The industrial growth greatly benefited the middle-class and the working-class; however, the poor were driven into shantytowns and rural areas. To illustrate the great poverty of this time in Latin America, people living in “shantytowns” resided in vast settlements built of cardboard and other available materials such as metal and sheets of plastic. These “towns” frequently lacked proper sanitation. One could imagine how living in these shantytowns would degrade the human spirit and foster a sense of worthlessness. The abrupt shift in the social classes

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 novel, “Child of the Dark,” details the stories of a poor woman and her struggles in life. The book is a diary written by Carolina Maria de Jesus where she writes about her experiences living in the favelas in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Carolina’s diary details the events in her life that took place between the years of 1955 and 1960. Carolina documents the everyday lives of people who live in the favelas and details what life is like for poor people in Brazil. Carolina’s diary gives a good depiction of life in the favela.

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.

The government makes one of the biggest contributions to the welfare of the family by providing financial safety. The problem is that the government fails to show any concern for these families unless it is brought to their attention, and even then nothing is changed. The lack of interest by the housing authorities leads to the neglect of Horner for over fifteen years. “The rotting carcasses explained the putrid odor rising from the Riverses’ toilet. It wasn’t aborted fetuses, as LaJoe had though. It was dead animals, the stench of rotting flesh rising through the pipes” (Kotlowitz 241). The government leaves the projects to fend for themselves, which increased the communities’ turmoil. If the government and the people worked together, more problems could be solved.

Parks talks about Flavio and his family, describing the everyday struggles of Flavio as he tries to grow up in Catacumba. Flavio’s siblings are viewed as rowdy and unable to get along. Parks also shows how impoverished the da Silva family is when he finds out Jose da Silva, the father, earns seventy-five cents regularly. Parks also describes how hostile the favelas are during the night, and how they are no place for a child to be nurtured in. Later in the passage Parks describes another side of Brazil when he goes to the hotel he stays in, which is much more fortunate than the favelas. To conclude, the reader finds out Flavio will not live long when he is taken to the doctor, where the doctor proceeds to tell Parks and the da Silva family the news. Parks then ends the article by telling Flavio everything will be okay, upon which Flavio replies with saying he’s more concerned for his sibling than his own well-being Leaving the reader feeling compassionate towards Flavio and his family.

Nelson Mandela once said, “Poverty is not natural it 's man-made.” This quote states that a person can overcome poverty if one has the desire to live a better life. In a novel called Poor People written by William T. Vollmann, the author travels around different countries and places to learn about poor people and to get a global perspective view. While interviewing different kinds of people, Vollmann would ask them one question: why are you poor? Looking at people 's answers Vollmann noticed that some of the people gave quite interesting answers. Vollmann went through a lot of situations where he just couldn 't imagine what life would be if he was ever to live like that. Another novel that has a similar poverty situation is called Let The Water Hold Me Down, written by Michael Spurgeon. Hank, the main character of the novel, experiences a tragic moment in his life. Losing his wife and daughter while drowning, this tragedy left him feeling like it’s all due to his miscarrying about them. His life becomes full of sorrow, and the only way out it was to go to Mexico to his friend’s place and restart his life over. In a new country of Mexico, this story takes place. Even though he had money, a house, and friends’ support, he still experienced lots of pressure trying to survive in Mexico. Poverty has different meanings in everyone 's lives but by reading these two novels, there are three similarities that can be made about people living in poverty.

At other times she would mention other information. She referred to the rich people nearby as the people who lived in the brick houses. “The neighbors in the brick houses say: the politicians protect the favelados.”(34) Carolina disagreed with this and said, “The politicians only show up here during election campaigns.”(34) Although Carolina tried to keep her spirits up most of the time, she also had times where she thought herself as trash. “I classify Sao Paulo this way: The Governors Palace is the living room. The mayor’s office is the dining room and the city is the garden. And the fevela is the back yard where they throw the garbage.”(35) Later on in her diary she describes the politicians as a rainbow she was chasing. No matter how far she ran she could not reach the end of the rainbow. “The rainbow was a long way

Both Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies and Pretty Modern acknowledge the term class, and the established social hierarchy and physical sufferings that comes from it, in many cultures. According to Schultz and Lavenda, class is defined as “a ranked group within a hierarchically stratified society whose membership is defined primarily in terms of wealth, occupation, or other economic criteria” (312). Ultimately, my goal is to demonstrate that while both ethnographies explore class, they do it in equally important, but different ways. Seth Holmes’ Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is an account of the Triqui people and other Mexican migrant’s sufferings in U.S. farm labor camps. Alexander Edmonds’ Pretty Modern is an account of the booming plastic surgery market in Brazil, and the risks women take in order to modify themselves. Class is a rather fixed concept; it’s not easy to move between classes in most societies. While both ethnographies tell the tale of people trying to attain more wealth and a better occupation, the former does it in a way where class is perceived to be immovable, while the latter seems to heavily rely on the notion that you can climb the social ladder.

Comparing ?Everyday Use?, ?Sonny?s Blues? and ?The Cathedral?, one can conclude that they share a common meaning. Although all three stories consider poverty as their theme, each chooses to elaborate it in a different manner. In fact, ?Everyday Use? emphasizes on the state of extreme poverty in which certain people live. On the other hand, ?Sonny?s Blues? contributes to the theme by describing the poverty of spirit of Harlem?s ?inner kids?. Carver?s ?The Cathedral?, however, prefers to explore the notion of poverty as a state of one?s mind rather than the environment in which one lives.

Arthur Morrison’s 1896 novel A Child of the Jago allows for an exploration of the relationship between wealth, poverty, and responsibility within the setting of the Old Jago slum. Wealth can be defined as “an abundance of valuable possessions or money” (wealth, OxfordDictionaries.com) and for the purpose of this essay refers to the “well-to-do citizens”, i.e. the middle and upper-classes, that were separated “from the masses” of the poor. In contrast, there are two types of poverty. Absolute poverty can be defined as “a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information” (Mack, Poverty.ac.uk). In comparison, relative poverty is defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as “poverty in relation to the economic status of other members of society: people are poor if they fall below prevailing standards of living in a given societal context” (Poverty, UNESCO.org). Both types of poverty can be seen in Morrison’s text as the slum inhabitants struggle to provide for their basic human needs, and are relatively poor in comparison to Morrison’s intended middle-class reader. This essay intends to question what was responsible for the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor in the late Victorian period, detailed in the George Sims quotation in the question, with responsibility being defined as “the state or fact of being

As Dora travels to Bom Jesus do Norte, we can see that illiteracy is an issue that is commonly shared with other regions of Brazil. In Bom Jesus, Dora and Josué write letters for people who’ve arrived for the pilgrimage. Through this, we are able to see that illiteracy is not only an issue that is apparent within urban areas, but also especially within rural ones where lack of education is extremely common. Dora is not only one of the few literate people of Rio, but she also represents the working poor of Brazil. Although she does have a home, she lacks a formal job and protections.

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