In a country where a significant percentage of the population is homeless (approximately 600,000 (endhomelesness), but the exact count is unknown since it is so difficult to accurately measure), it is important that everyone understands the typical experiences and plight of a homeless person. Since most people likely do not have regular face-to-face interactions with the homeless, their perception of the homeless will be based around the stories they hear and read. Thus, it is important to analyze those popular stories and memoirs and determine if they accurately reflect the typical homeless individual. One of those popular stories is Lars Eighner’s On Dumpster Diving. In his memoir, he lays out an image of homeless life which I think is atypical …show more content…
I’d like to start by examining Mr. Eighner’s qualities as a person using evidence from his essay. From the start, we see that he is a very big proponent of what he calls scavenging when he mentions that “I began Dumpster diving about a year before I became homeless” and “I think it [scavenging] a sound and honorable niche,” (Eighner 1). From this we can gather that he certainly is a scavenger, and enjoys doing it, since he began a year before he truly had need of performing the art. I would label this as being unnecessarily frugal, since he was scavenging and salvaging not out of pure necessity, but likely because he enjoyed it. However, regardless of whether or not he enjoyed it, the becoming a scavenger was a self-inflicted lifestyle decision. From there, he goes on to describe his three principles of eating safely from Dumpsters, “using the senses and common sense to evaluate the condition of the found materials, knowing the Dumpsters of a given area and checking them regularly, and seeking always to answer the question ‘Why was this discarded?’” (2) From these three principles, we can see that he is very meticulous, a quality which is reinforced as you read on and he explains all of his conditions for safe food of every type. A little bit later on in the essay he becomes very hypocritical,
According to Mayberry (2009) Lars Eighner, a graduate of the University of Texas, became homeless in 1988 and again in 1995 (p. 351). Some of the accounts from Travels with Lisbeth (1993), a book by Lars Eighner, depicted what he went through and what he found during his homeless state. A homeless person must eat and sleep but may not know where or when this might happen next. The human will to survive enabled Eighner to eat food from a dumpster, reach out to other for handouts, and sleep in places other than a bed with covers.
People may or may not realize that many of the goods tossed out are still in fresh conditions. Regularly, citizens would toss out fruits and vegetables (especially) because they look almost rotten or have a few bruises (Dockterman). Even the food people eat is judged on how perfect or flawed it is before they decide to ingest it. Along with regular people, the majority of grocery stores pick out the prettiest looking edibles to put in their displays and they even overstock to look “bountiful” (Dockterman). Then the stores would throw out the rejects, though still perfectly edible, and they would end up in dumpsters. While Eighner would be constantly reminded as to why the food was discarded, most of the foods he found were still edible
Didion and Eighner have different styles of writing, but they both created writings with an instructional component. In both pieces of literature, they guide the audience like a mother to child, guiding us step by step in order to perfect the outcome. Joan Didion’s “On Keeping a Notebook” teaches the reader on how to keep note of the past through a notebook. “On Dumpster Diving” written by Lars Eighner, teaches the reader how to successfully dumpster dive and survive. However, Eighner’s piece included many details, whereas Didion’s ideas used examples by flowing from one top to another. It could also be said that Lars Eighner’s piece creates a more thorough analysis on how to dumpster dive. In spite of the fact that the pieces of literature
“Untouchables” by Jonathan Kozol goes on a journey to discover the mistreatment of homeless Americans. The story is very well detailed in explaining how society does not accept these individuals and how they are literally “untouchable.” Kozol shows characters and tells stories of how they life got affected by homelessness and the treatment that came along with it. The author also explains how easy it is to be prune to homelessness by making one little mistake. Not only does Kozol show society thoughts about the homeless are bad, but he also shows the homeless people thoughts of how society responds to them being “low class.” In Jonathan Kozol’s short story “Untouchables,” he exhibits this by explaining how they are misunderstood, stereotyped,
...This is a very powerful article taking his readers into the world of being poor and homeless, and what people experience every day that could never be imagined. Eighner says in one of his last paragraphs that, “many times in our travels I have lost everything but the clothes I was wearing and Lizbeth” (Eighner 724). He also states that he and the wealthy have the same attitudes about knowing there is more where what they came from. Eighner is so powerful and doesn’t care what others think of him. He is just trying to survive like everyone else. To have such a carefree attitude is very moving.
Lars' on dumpster diving is not a piece which is meant to be taken in a pitiful way. At the end of the essay he himself says he feels sorry for those that he scavenges from, those that put sentiment into material wealth. He goes into great detail on his dumpster diving exploits. The message of this essay is one of resilience and to make do with what one has. Examples are used quite frequently, the pizza shop or the fire ants, but also his language when he says "he may wipe off the egg yolk off the can but he cannot erase the stigma of eating eating garbage".
In the United States, homelessness has remained a constant presence in all major cities. For example, in New York City, it is comprised of alcoholics, drug addicts, and other people (“American History”). It has largely moved into hidden places such as unused subway tunnels or under bridges. Whether or not we experience it ourselves, homelessness impacts all of us. Homelessness describes all normal life crisis. There is a difference between people who experience these challenges and become homeless and people who face them and do not use the support systems that they have in place.
In the early hours of the morning on Thursday, January 3, 2013, James G. Fulmer was found frozen to death on the steps of a Nashville Church. James Fulmer was 50 years old, homeless, and physically handicapped (wsmv.com). His tragic story is just one of almost 1,000 homeless men and women will suffer death caused by hypothermia each year. (nationalhomeless.org). Every night in the United States, over 600,000 people encounter homelessness. Their stories are diverse and their paths to homelessness, varied. Many have found themselves on the streets due to domestic violence, job loss and mental illness (npr.org). Some were teachers, accountants, musicians, painters, and even doctors. So many of the homeless population once lead normal lives. Yet, there is a social stigma that views the homeless as lazy, unwilling to work, uneducated and even untrustworthy. In a Capitalist society that places the highest value on image and the almighty dollar, there seems to be little desire to interact with these “outcasts”.
Thousands of homeless people live in the subway, railroad, and sewage tunnels that form the bowels of New York City. Jennifer Toth visits these communities to learn their stories and lifestyle beneath the city. Many of these homeless people are drug addicts, mentally ill, runaways, or gang members. The tunnels that these people live in are filthy, rat infested, diseased, and dangerous for anyone to live in; however, the homeless find these tunnels to be a safe haven from the world above. Most of these communities are tight knit and even function as societies with established leaders. The homeless act as a kin; there is a mutual understanding between each person and the struggle to live. Drugs, rape, mental illness, or so...
In the past decades, the booming housing market has caused the prices of real estate to dramatically increase causing the issue of homelessness to be on the rise. Many people who do live on the streets, resort to dumpster diving and finding trash to call theirs. In his article: "On Dumpster Diving" Lars Eighner, goes into depth about his experiences while dumpster diving. Eighner found many items in the dumpster that were still edible or somewhat useful. He began diving a year before he became homeless and has continued while he wrote his piece of work (Eighner 673). Eighner enlightens us with many instances of his journey dumpster diving while he was homeless.
Although Eighner reveals that his chosen lifestyle was to live on another's refuge, he kept in accordance with his acts of superiority and snobbishness by excluding himself from the term "Dumpster Diving." Instead, he preferred to be called a "scavenger because of its frankness in the term." (Eighner, 1993). Furthermore, Eighner, explains that there are rules to abide by when successfully "scavenging" through dumpsters, "using the senses…knowing the dumpsters of a given area…. [and] Why was this discarded?" It is the explanation of the three guidelines Eighner asserts to be superior to 'can scroungers' (Homeless people who rummage through the dumpsters for money). The author further elaborates his snobbishness by revealing that he has tried the heinous lifestyle of "can scroungers," and deduced that only a few dollars could be obtained. Moreover, Eighner states, "one can extract the necessities of life from the dumpsters directly with far less effort than would be required to accumulate the equivalent of cans." (Eighner, 1993). The author stereoty...
Lars Eighner uses the appeal of ethos the most prominently in his book to prove he is credible, followed by an appeal logos by applying logic and pathos using stories.
There are many other cases of why the homeless are homeless like domestic violence, mental illness, addictions, and unaffordable health care. Homelessness is a problem which has been caused by many different aspects but mainly money because of massive unemployment rates. A hidden aspect to homelessness that we may not think of is ...
Step 3: 1. Eighner introduces his arguments through the use of narrative stories and his own personal experiences. He uses this technique to let the reader see firsthand how some people are able to survive off what is carelessly thrown away by others who take what they own for granted. Eighner illustrates this point on page 1, “The necessities of daily life I began to extract from Dumpsters. Yes, we ate from Dumpsters. Except for jeans, all my clothes can from Dumpsters. Boom boxes, candles, bedding, toilet paper, medicine, books, a typewriter… I acquired many things from the Dumpsters.”
It’s shown satirically on television, made fun of in music, and joked about in day-to-day activities: being homeless. I don’t understand what’s so funny about being homeless. The struggle to stay alive in an uninviting climate with nothing but the clothes on your back, doesn’t seem very fun. Yet in the media, being homeless is still treated like a joke. In the essay “Homeless” by Anna Quindlen, the reader is shown what it truly means to be without a home. My view on the struggles that homeless people have to endure is very similar to that of Quindlen’s in her essay, which perfectly captured the reality of what it is like to be without a home, and what it truly means to be homeless; while simultaneously demonstrating to me the negative effect