Survival
The 1920s were a time of prosperity. Of course that all changed with Black Tuesday and the economy crash that followed. Ron Howard’s the Cinderella Man, is about a man named Jim Braddock who was once a big boxing star before the Great Depression. When he broke his arm, he kicked out of the ring and was faced with the difficult world that existed in the 1930s. Jim Braddock and his family are faced against the Great Depression, and as his family and his face the economic and societal problems of 1934, similarities and differences are able to be noticed.
In the movie, Jim and his family experience some of the effects of the Great Depression. One example is when Jim is unable to find work. This is after he has lost his boxing license, partially because he broke his wrist. During the Depression, unemployment went up to twenty-five percent. As a result of his lack of work, Jim and his family struggle to survive. They barely have enough money to buy food let alone to buy milk or to pay their mortgage, electricity, or gas bills. When Jim and Mae’s children get sick, they are not able to get a doctor or even medicine because they cannot afford it. Many others in that time lived in cardboard shacks in the middle of Central Park because they could no longer afford a house. Mae’s children felt of the tough times with little money. They were sent to live with some relatives at one point because it got so bad they could not afford to take care of their own kids. It is often said that the children in those days had no childhood due to the stresses of survival that commonly held their hearts at a young age. More than 200,000 children wandered the country without homes as a result of the split up between parents (“Explorations”). Cind...
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...imes without a husband or wife. With hope and hard work, Jim was able to succeed past the Depression, just as it is possible to today.
Works Cited
Cinderella Man. Dir. Ron Howard. Miramax, 2005.
Deutsch, Tracey. "Great Depression." Encyclopedia of Chicago. N.p., 2005. Web. 10 Mar. 2010. .
"Explorations: Children and the Great Depression." Digital History. N.p., 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 10 Mar. 2010. .
"Human Meaning of the Great Depression." Digital History. N.p., 11 Mar. 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2010. .
Pillsbury, Brent. "Chapter 11 Swinging Thirties and the Great Depression." US History, period 7. 22 Feb. 2010.
In the beginning of the novel, Jim had a family but was soon abandoned by them do to both of their deaths. He was then on his way to his grandparents house in Nebraska to begin a new and different life. At this point, he began a union with both his grandparents as well as Antonia.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers."The Great Depression." Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt, ed. by Allida Black, June Hopkins, et. al. (Hyde Park, New York: Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, 2003). http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/great-depression.htm [Accessed March 10, 2010].
The Great Depression of the 1930’s caused widespread poverty, but the popular culture of the time did not reflect this. People wanted to escape from this harsh time so movies, dancing and sports became very popular. Radios broadcasted boxing matches and boxers became stars. The heavyweight champion James J. Braddock aka “Cinderella Man,” gained popularity. James Braddock gained fame by winning many fights and proving everyone wrong when they said he was too old and couldn’t win.
"America's Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal."DPLA. Digital Public Library of America. Web. 20 Nov 2013. .
McElvaine, Robert S, ed. Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
The Great Depression America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine covers many topics of American history during the "Great Depression" through 1941. The topic that I have selected to compare to the text of American, Past and Present, written by Robert A. Divine, T.H. Breen, George M. Frederickson and R. Hal Williams, is Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States and America's president during the horrible "Great Depression".
zShmoop Editorial Team. "Politics in The Great Depression." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
Watkins, T.H.. The Great Depression: America in the 1930s. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993.
Levine, Linda. “The Labor Market During the Great Depression and the Current Recession”. 19 June 2009. 6 March 2010. < http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40655_20090619.pdf>.
Many men left their families during the Great Depression, but James J Braddock never did. Mae, his wife, did not enjoy James boxing. She tried to stop him from his passion multiple occasions. Braddock could have left his wife for his job or left his job for his wife, but he didn’t. He lost his job when he broke his hand boxing. He went out looking for a job every morning hoping they would pick him at the docks. His son comes home, but his mom catches him with sausage that he stole
As with many disasters, the effect on individuals was varied, although with unemployment at 28% (not including eleven million struggling farm workers (Clements, page 74)), it is doubtful that anyone totally escaped the effects of the Depression. Amongst the worst affected were men who became known as Hoboes- migrants who travelled the USA frantically searching for work. According to a testimony by Louis Banks (Cements, page 74), many men were so in need they regularly risked their lives hitching on trains to try and find employment- if they didn’t fall, there was always the chance of being shot by the train police. This sense of mortal desperation is apparent in much of the evidence- “A man over forty might as well go out and shoot himself”
The Great Depression is seen as one of the most sorrowful and desolate times in the history of the United States. This time was the longest period of recession ever seen by this nation so far. It lasted from 1929 to 1939, over ten years of complete confusion and despondency within the people. Many Americans were affected greatly by this tragic time and sacrificed much of their lives so that they and their families may have the chance to live. This act of desperation can be seen throughout the movie, The Cinderella Man, where a professional boxer, Jim Braddock, becomes crippled by the depression, both economically and spiritually. The observer can see this through the explicit cinematography of the movie and depiction of the Great Depression made by the director. However the director left out a key aspect of the happenings of the depression, the stock market crash. Perhaps, this catastrophic event was irrelevant to the plot and message of the movie, but it is important to the actual Great Depression of the United States. Furthermore, the nation of 2010 is well on its way to repeating history. There are frightening similarities between that dreadful time of the 1930’s and the present that should not be overlooked, or the United States might condemn itself back into that horrific state it has so long tried to avoid.
The film O brother, where art thou? is set in the Great Depression of the 1930’s and emphasizes the struggle between the upper and lower classes by using a variety of cinematic devices. Through the use of these cinematic devices and comedic relief the realities of the Depression are viewed without creating a stark, melancholy, documentary-styled film. Examples in this film of these cinematic devices used to show these realities include:
For most people, survival is just a matter of putting food on the table, making sure that the house payment is in on time, and remembering to put on that big winter coat. Prisoners in the holocaust did not have to worry about such things. Their food, cloths, and shelter were all provided for them. Unfortunately, there was never enough food, never sufficient shelter, and the cloths were never good enough. The methods of survival portrayed in the novels Maus by Art Spieglmen and Night by Elie Wiesel are distinctly different, but undeniably similar.