An Experiment in Misery Final Paper
An Experiment in Misery is a short story written by Stephen Crane that is as true now as it was a few thousand years ago. The story is of a young man who appears to be down on his luck wandering the streets of a city at night. While wondering around the upper class side of town he is ridiculed for his lack of wealth by strangers. After the being tormented by the harsh words of stranger he found his way to a side of town that is of a much lower socioeconomic status. In this new side of town due to the kindness of stranger he is able to find himself food and a friend, the assassin, who shows him a place to stay over night for the cost of a few cents. After meeting the assassin and no longer being belittled
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I believe Crane is trying to impress upon the reader that those who use money as a way to measure their importance in life seem to have forgotten that there is more to life. They got caught up in the rat race of who has more monetary wealth and as a consequence they have become unhappy and their ego’s so inflated to the point where they feel it necessary to mock those who have been unable to rise to their level of wealth without knowing the circumstances that they have faced in their life. This story could be interpreted as though it was trying to convince the reader that being content could have much smaller ties to money than the average person would like to believe. Toward the beginning of the story the young man had been berated with rude remarks by strangers as he walked through a well off side of town. …show more content…
In Crane’s story the people of a higher socioeconomic standing appear to think less of the people who earn less than them as proven in this passage “By the time he had reached City Hall Park he was plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," and with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound depressed state”(Crane 1). Similar to Voltaire’s story those who are successful look down and think less of those who have been unable to rise to their level of intelligence and wealth. Given the perspective of Crane’s story form the young man’s point of view
The upper class lives far above the poor, causing the lower class to feel shame which then stimulates the desire to achieve equality and happiness which the American dream promises. The narrator, Esperanza, admits that when looking at the homes on the hill, "I am ashamed--all of us staring out the window like the hungry. I am tired of looking at what we can`t have." She feels self-conscious not only for her lack of money and house, but also because her family looks at these houses with such longing that their expressions are comparable to "the hungry." Since she feels that her family's income and means exists beyond the starving class, she does not want to look at the houses with an appearance of hunger. She feels ashamed for belonging to the lower class who can only look and admire the houses but cannot own them. Ezperanza no longer feels content with looking at the houses because she wants her own yet knows that at the moment, she cannot have it. In addition, Esperanza notes that "People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth." The upper class lives on a metaphorical hill, near the stars and heavens because society raises up those with money. Because society places the wealthy on a pedestal or "hill" they become unaware of anyone other than those who live leisurely lives. They do not see the poor who struggle and work through the everyday hardships life throws at them. According to Esperanza, the poor live "too much on earth" signifying that they have experienced too many trials and tribulations yet have not spent anytime amongst the stars.
In order to establish her novel in Darwinian terms, Wharton dehumanizes her characters to portray them as creatures that rely on money for survival. Specifically, this applies to the symbolic biome of the upper class. While Selden, a friend and spectator of the wealthy, talks with Lily he comments, “And so it is with [the] rich people-they may not be thinking of money but they’re breathing it all the while: take them into another element and see how they squirm and gasp” (Wharton 75). Wharton’s diction characterizes the wealthy as animals, rather than people, so she can relate the classes to biomes, or environments that are based on wealth. Instead of climate changing between the different environments, it is one 's income changing between
For millennia, there have been constant conflicts between the upper class and the lower class, characterized by the upper class’s sense of superiority towards those less economically prosperous. Mansfield, Gordimer, and Orwell describe these conflicts between the upper and lower classes to propose that completely transcending class prejudices is impossible and suggest that societal values have greater impact than individual values as they degrade both a person’s behavior and morality.
In Player Piano, the world is divided into three parts, “In the northwest are the managers and engineers…the northeast the machines…and in the south, the area known locally has Homestead where almost all the people live” (Vonnegut 1). The people in this world are literally divided by land mass. The individuals who live and Homestead have no connection with the individuals who live in the northwest. These two people provide two different demographics, the proletariat and the “capitalists”. The “capitalists” are those which work on and manage the machinery. These individuals are highly educated with doctoral degree’s opposed to the proletariats who have no need for higher education and spend most of their days simply existing. The “capitalists” and proletariats are divided intellectually, and often times cannot relate. More so, the commonalties feel as if they were the lesser group. When Paul enters into a bar in Homestead that is mostly frequented by the common people, a waitress says, “What are you doing here- having a good laugh at the dumb bunnies?” (Vonnegut 103). This intellectual division has led to an emotional division as well. A majority feels lesser than the minority simply because of intelligence. The waitress referring to herself and those around her as “dumb bunnies” shows that in her eyes and the eyes of the many, “capitalists” look down upon them and mock them
The world in which Lily grows up in is one where money is the standard by which everyone is judged. In a setting like this, “money stands for all kinds of things- its purchasing quality isn’t limited to diamonds and motor cars” (Wharton 66). Therefore, even small things such as the way a person dresses or the places someone frequents become of high importance as they are representative of how much money a person possesses. This materialistic tendency ...
Crane also discloses his view of the American society in a realistic light because he exhibits realism by unveiling America’s true monstrous face, and its white privilege- he same white privilege that causes blacks to conform to the standards of a white American society. In doing so, Crane compliments Emerson’s main idea of “Self-Reliance” that people should “believe [their] own thought, to believe that what is true for [themselves] in [their] private heart is true for all men.’’ Emerson’s belief that people should take heed to their own thoughts because society persuades people to conform, summarizes the idea of individuality Crane express in his story “The
Within the real world individuals constantly ask: Does money actually equal happiness? Money doesn’t equal happiness, money equals superiority or privilege and happiness equals desire. Similarly, in Scott Fitzgerald's’ The Great Gatsby, Tom, Daisy and Gatsby portray money equals superiority and happiness equal desire by the actions they chose to make as well as their deep sentiments.
Jolley uses characterization to individualize each character in a poverty stricken family. The son is referred to as a prince by his mother several times throughout the story even though he is a high school dropout. “Mother always called him Prince; she worried about him all the time. I couldn’t think why. He was only my brother and a drop out at that” (117). The author portrays the son to be someone with low self-esteem because he is poor and a drop out he lives a miserable life. His mother tries to provide him with as much, but is unable to do this because of her social status is society. “‘Sleeps the best thing he can have. I wish he’d eat!’ She watched me as I took bread and spread the butter thick, she was never mean about butter, when we didn’t have other things we always had plenty of butter” (117). Through this passage the author convincingly demonstrates that they are poor and cannot afford an assortment of thing...
Prisoners must always address the guards as "Mr. Correctional Officer," and the warden as "Mr. Chief Correctional Officer."
The author juxtaposes the rich and poor with those in between in order to convince the audience, the middle class, that they should follow in the footsteps of both those richer and poorer than them in order to cease their materialistic attitudes. Near the end of the essay, Eighner states, “I think this is an attitude I share with the very wealthy—we both know there is plenty more where what we have came from. Between us are the rat-race millions who have confounded their selves with the objects they grasp and who nightly scavenge the cable channels looking for they know not what.” The author is stating that the wealthy and the homeless are both aware that there are things more important in life than tangible objects. Everyone else, however, has not made this connection yet and still searches, meaninglessly, for something of value. The middle class is often known to aspire to...
The notion of poverty has a very expanded meaning. Although all three stories use poverty as their theme, each interprets it differently. Consequently, it does not necessarily mean the state of extreme misery that has been described in ?Everyday Use?. As Carver points out, poverty may refer to poverty of one?s mind, which is caused primarily by the lack of education and stereotyped personality. Finally, poverty may reflect the hopelessness of one?s mind. Realizing that no bright future awaits them, Harlem kids find no sense in their lives. Unfortunately, the satisfaction of realizing their full potential does not derive from achieving standards that are unachievable by others. Instead, it arises uniquely from denigrating others, as the only way to be higher than someone is to put this person lower than you.
In the beginning of the play, Walter is foolish and quarrelsome, with his heart set on becoming affluent. As he grasps how hard work his father worked and how hard his family works, he reasons that living by his standards is more important than gaining wealth, and he stops feeling resentful towards them. This play highlights how many members of society focus more on making money than living by their ethical
Devastated, Thomas Mann leaves his father's grain firm, which is liquidated after his rather young father's death, and concentrates on his journalism career. This tragic event altered his life to a grave extent; however, without this tragedy he may never have become a writer. Deliberately, Mann expresses his views on society in his various short stories, which are affected by his youth and the cruel war. In order to gain insight on different cultures and the societies within, Mann travels to multiple countries around Europe. Thomas Mann, an apprised German author, elaborates his view on postwar society despite the early twentieth century's economic crisis in his short story “Disorder and Early Sorrow”.
When analyzing A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens one can see that Dickens reveals a dissociation among the upper and lower classes. The two classes are represented in a way which expresses the difference between the power, sense of entitlement and wealth of the upper class through ruthless and injustice actions put against the poor. This is seen through the character of Monseigneur who is a part of the upper class and seems as if he is the place holder of the aristocratic class. The first example of ruthlessness and injustice comes when Dickens describes how pathetic it is when the Monseigneur uses four men to prepare his morning chocolate. “But, his morning’s chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without
..., a person who earns $25,000 is happier than a person who makes $125,000 and an employee who makes $500,000 is only slightly happier than someone who makes $55,000. Lastly, there are more important things in life that and make you happy, for example, friends. They don’t come with a price tag, and if they do, you definitely need new friends. Money won’t make you happy since good times can’t be bought. You don’t need a fancy vacation to have a good time; it’s just a matter of who you spend it with. Over the years, humans have blown the value of money way out of proportion. People make it seem like if you’re not filthy rich, then you won’t live a good life but it’s not true. You can lack money and yet still live a perfect, happy life.