Chapter 4 What is Poverty?

 

Chapter 4 What is Poverty? 

Class 11 English

Exercise

Jo Goodwin Parker 

Summary 

An anonymous person named Jo Goodwin Parker from West
Virginia, in the southern United States, wrote this personal essay
titled “What is Poverty?” With a note from Jo Goodwin Parker, she
mailed her essay to George Henderson, a professor at the University
of Oklahoma. This essay was later published without any additional
information about the author or source.
This essay contains the writer’s painful life experiences as well as
the hardships she faced as a result of her poverty. She has detailed
her dreadful childhood and adulthood experiences. 

Main Summary 

In this essay, Jo Goodwin Parker has described her life living in
poverty and her daily struggles for the sake of her family. According
to her poverty has many faces. For her poverty is living with dirt,
living without hope, better foodstuff, medical care, proper
sanitation, and proper education. It is like an acid that destroys
one’s pride, honor, health, and future. She describes herself as
dirty, smelly, and living life without proper clothes. She also
describes that due to the high cost of essential things she does not
have luxuries in her life.
She could not even afford the necessary items because of her
poverty. She could not even get any help and support from the
government agencies because it never exists in her area. She wants
to get help through various agencies but she has no means to travel
to reach them. Her job even does not support her to get out of her
situation because it does not pay enough for the expense of child
care. So Parker writes that poverty is looking into a black future because running life on a daily basis itself is a great challenge. In
this situation, no one can expect a good future. 

Parker does not want sympathy but she wants an understanding of
her readers about poverty. Because of poverty, she left school at a
very early age, got married, became pregnant many times because
birth control was expensive for her. Even her husband left her
because of poverty. her economic status was too poor so health
does not come as a priority and could not do her operation in time.
She used to give cornbread without oil as a breakfast to her kids.
She did not buy soap in order to buy her baby diapers. She visited
various government and private agencies to ask for help but could
not find the right person to help her. She felt shame and
humiliation for the sake of her three children. She had to spread her
hands in different places.

What is Poverty? – Complete Exercise

 Understanding the text 

Answer the following questions. 

a. What is poverty according to Parker? 

Answer: According to Parker, poverty is about lack of having enough
money for necessities, better foodstuffs, very little education and
little or no access to health care. It is like an acid that destroys
pride, honour, health and future. Overall poverty means living
without hope, better foods, medical care and proper education. 

b. How is poverty difficult for Parker’s children? List some specific
examples. 

Answer: Parker’s three children suffer a lot due to poverty. They live
their miserable lives due to the lack of proper foodstuffs, education,
clothing and care. Parker has presented the very bad condition of
her children along with her. According to her, they eat oil less
cornbread as a breakfast. They wear dirty clothes. They aren’t sent
to a school. Parker has informed us about a day’s event when she
left her children under the care of her mother during her job. When
she returned, she found her youngest covered with flyspecks whose
diaper hadn’t been changed since morning. Her next son was playing with the broken glasses. Her eldest son was playing on the
edge of the lake. Her children would play in dirt. In this way poverty
is difficult for Parker’s children.

c. How does Parker try to obtain help, and what problems does she
encounter? 

Answer: Parker tires to obtain help from different people but she
was rejected. She asks her relative for a loan, but her relative
wanted something in return. She also tried in different offices for
job and asked for loan too. She had to describe her pathetic
condition to many people to get help. Finally, someone comes out
and asks her if she needs help. That isn’t the person she needs to
see. She goes to see another person. After telling him the whole
story about her poverty she finds that this is the wrong office. Then,
she must repeat the whole process. In this way, Parker has to
encounter a lot of problems. 

d. Why are people’s opinions and prejudices her greatest obstacles? 

Answer: People’s opinions and prejudices are her greatest obstacles
because these aspects prevent her from getting supportive hands
for the sake of her family. She was dominated by other people due
to her poor condition. Most of the people don’t realize the bitter
experience of poverty. For them, the pain of poor people is nothing.
They keep on giving their free advices as if being poor is a curse and
it is easy to come out of poverty. When she asks for help, some
want to take advantage of her helplessness. Such prejudices make
her unable to get help. 

e. How does Parker defend her inability to get help? How does she
discount the usual solutions society has for poverty (e.g., welfare,
education, and health clinics)? 

Answer: Parker defends her inability to get help through her
opinions and by expressing her experiences of poverty. She
discounts the usual solutions society has for poverty by drawing the
attention of people towards the pathetic state of poor people. She
says that living without hope, medical care, and proper education is
like an acid that destroys pride, honour, heath and future. She has
to move and spread her hands in many agencies in the name of
welfare where she has to be ashamed and humiliated. She has to
prove her poverty time and again and face rejection. In the name of education, school-launched programs are there but they are of no
use. She has experienced her two children’s condition after sending
them to school. Parker’s life is quite away from health clinics’
facilities. To get medical help, she has to walk miles. If she asks for
someone’s help, the helper expects negative things from her. Thus,
Parker shows how shameful, humiliating and disgusting it is to be
poor.

Reference to the context 

a. Explain the following: Poverty is looking into a black future. 

Answer: This line “Poverty is looking into a black future” has been
stated by the writer Jo Goodwin Parker in her essay. She has put
forward this line for her readers to present her experience of
poverty. She thinks that poor can’t provide proper food and
education to their children. Nor they can maintain cleanliness and
sound health because they don’t have money. Such condition
ultimately invites disease, helplessness, hunger, unemployment,
crimes etc. So, poverty leads people towards the black future. Poor
people have to live a miserable life on their daily basis. They have
no hope of any betterment. They keep on spending their lives in
disparity looking into a black future. Poverty breaks expectations
and dreams of future. 

b. What does Parker mean by “The poor are always silent”?

Answer: “The poor are always silent” means the helplessness of
poor people who cannot spend money for healthcare and medicine.
When the question of money arises, they are silent, because they
can’t even dream of having expensive medical operations, eating in
restaurant, wearing fashionable dresses, going to quality schools
etc. They have no words in response because they are completely
helpless. Where money speaks, they are voiceless. They have very
pathetic situation. 

c. What writing strategy does the author use at the beginning of
most of the paragraphs? Do you notice a recurring pattern? What is
it? 

Answer: In this essay, the author uses her repetition strategy at the beginning of most of the paragraphs. She repeats the phrase
“Poverty is”. The essay is well organized where she repeats the
word – poverty many times. That means her main concern is
poverty and she is showing her bitter feelings and frustrations
about her miserable conditions. The whole essay sounds like a
casual conversation. She is talking to an imaginary reader who does
not understand what poverty is. She uses satire and humour in the
middle.

d. How does Parker develop each paragraph? What details make
each paragraph memorable? 

Answer: Parker develops each paragraph starting with her repetition
strategy. She begins most of her paragraphs with a repetition
statement as “Poverty is”. She then provides her personal
experiences about her topic sentences.
The images of poverty that she mentioned in each paragraph is
memorable. She says poverty is a chisel that chips on honour is
worn away. The really poor people have inferiority complex due to
the economic factor. Their honour is really scattered. Even if the
man is wise and intellectual he can do nothing infront of the
wealth. The details related to her personal painful experiences and
the bitter reality of poverty make each paragraph memorable. 

e. In the final paragraph, how does the author use questions to
involve the reader in the issue of poverty? 

Answer: In the final paragraph, the author uses questions in her
informal style of direct conversation to involve the readers in the
issue of poverty. In the final paragraph she uses question “can you
be silent too?” where she wants to describe her silence due to
poverty that she faced in her life. She asked us that if poor are
silence and should we be silenced too. Parker is capable of causing
the reader to feel many emotions and forces the reader to question
her own stereotypes of poor Parker is capable of making the reader
feel guilty for the possessions that she has. She wanted to make
attention to the reader to solve the problems of poor people. They
must not think about themselves only she said not to be silence and
help others for their better future. She asked reader if his/her in
that situation, can they be silence too. Poor people are always
active to raise their voices. So, Parker wanted from the reader to
give their attention towards poor too.

Reference beyond the text 

a. Define a social problem (homelessness, unemployment, racism)
imitating Parker’s style. 

Answer:
A Social Problem: Unemployment
Unemployment the word itself if stays longer would affect the cost
of the economy. The entire individual who is not working in the
referenced period falls under the category of unemployment. They
might be anyone who is highly skilled or having no skills. When
unemployment reaches above the expected rates it subtle the
growth and leads to social issues. With no money, there is no
education, food resources and basic elements for the survivor.
Whether someone is homeless or has no job, this all head place to
social issues.
In conclusion, unemployment is the major problem that creates
disturbance, stress and lowers down a growing economy. The
personal and social concern has been associated with poverty,
population, lack of technologies, health risks, and slow expansion
of the business. All these issues arise when unemployment
exponentially grow within countries. This certainly remarks about
the serious problems of housing and hopeless life. Unemployment
causes harm for the economy not in the sense of waste of resources
but also by building pressure on the community. 

b. Using adjectives to highlight the futility of the situation, write a
short definition essay on Growing up in Poverty. 

Answer: 

Essay on Growing Up in Poverty 

Poverty is a state or condition in which a person or community lacks
the financial resources and essentials for a minimum standard of
living. Poverty means that the income level from employment is so
low that basic human needs can’t be met. Poverty-stricken people
and families might go without proper housing, clean water, healthy food, and medical attention. Each nation may have its own
threshold that determines how many of its people are living in
poverty.

Growing up in poverty is annoying and frustrating that never allows
you to be happy. When one cannot manage the minimum
requirements of life like food, education and health, that life is a
punishment. One’s creativity and natural talent can never come
out. Rather such situation humiliates him and he can never live a
dignified human life. Disparity and inequality never let him be free
and do something good in his lives. Growing up in poverty is a
frightening experience where one has to face various hardships and
struggles. It provides him with tiring and worrying experience
where pains are always ready to welcome him.