Within the two essays On Compassion by Barbara Lazear Ascher and On Dumpster Diving by Lars Eighner, the idea of living poor is presented as a central theme. Do earthly possessions and abundance of money really make you rich? Or in reality, are you really poor because you're focusing more on self-involvement rather than compassion and thoughtfulness towards other individuals? According to dictionary.com, the definition of poverty is the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor. Of these two essays, On Compassion is more effective to its purpose. In the story On Compassion, the author, Ascher, explains how no one is born with compassion and must be taught it. A homeless, black man was staring at a women’s baby in the stroller and she offered him a dollar. At first he was hesitant to take it, but eventually did. Later another man walks into an overpriced coffee shop in which the store owner handed him a bag with food. Ascher makes the readers question whether these were acts of fear, pity, or just simply out of the good of heart. Eighner’s essay On Dumpster Diving, conveys a story of a homeless who only has a dog named Lizbeth left after his savings ran out. The man in this story …show more content…
Throughout the whole essay Ascher kept bringing up so many hidden questions that made the reader think on a much deeper level. For example, like questioning themselves about who they are and how they treat other other people. My thoughts while reading automatically went to a self- examination. Therefore, Ascher achieved her purpose effectively by keeping the audience engaged. Contrastingly, Eighner’s purpose for writing On Dumpster Diving, was to describe how people take things for granted in life and don’t
During the duration of Eighner’s time as homeless, he had found the best diving spots where he had found diaries, birth control pills and slightly warm pizzas. Eighner wasn’t bothered by his lifestyle, rather he simply embraced it, as he dove in the broad daylight. Eighner and his dog Lizbeth, jumped into dumpsters to survive daily, they would pick out people’s “trash” and use it as their own. Food was a particularly dominant thing Eighner would find in the dumpster, he learned what food was the best
“Compassion is always, at its most authentic, about a shift from the cramped world of self-preoccupation into a more expansive place of fellowship, of true kinship.” These words come from the book Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, written by Gregory Boyle, an American Jesuit priest and founder of Homeboy Industries, an organization that provides employment training and support to former gang members. I was first introduced to Father Boyle’s work during my final semester at College of the Holy Cross in “Contemporary Christian Morality”, a favorite course of mine that examined the fundamental ethics of moral agency, human freedom, conscience, sin, suffering and virtue. It was a book that has continued to stay with me for
Through the essay, "Dumpster Diving," Eighner impresses his superiority by illustrating disinterested people and their lack to complete certain tasks the author is skillful at.
Jo Goodwin Parker’s essay “What is Poverty” is real definition of living in poverty. There is a meaning that she wasn’t us to listen to what it feels like living in poverty. Parker talks about how her children had to face the lack of health conditions. They lived with very minimum money which came from her working to help stable her family. I wouldn’t even use the word stable because there were so many difficulties she had to go through. Telling everyone about her condition to get a job is not easy especially if you have to repeat your situation every time. This essay made me feel like we should be grateful for all the amenities we have in life. I don’t feel sympathy for Parker but I have respect for this woman
She uses a string full of rhetorical questions throughout her article, as well, to make us contemplate whether people do deeds out of compassion, fear, or something else. She uses rhetorical questions such as “Was it fear or compassion that motivated that gift?”(6), “...what compels this woman to feed this man? Pity? Care? Compassion? Or does she simply want to rid her shop of his troublesome presence?”(9), and “Could it be that the homeless, like those ancients, are reminding us of our common humanity?”(14). These questions make the audience think and contemplate why these people did these acts of kindness. Ascher includes some of these rhetorical questions at the end of both of the narratives to force the readers to quickly analyze the situation and decide what the motivation was. As a result, I can conclude that one woman did it out of fear while the other did it out of compassion; therefore, this proves that people are not born compassionate, but they develop the quality later on in life. This is more effective instead of just expressing how she personally feels about each
Nobel Peace Prize winner, Desmond Tutu, once said “frequently people think compassion and love are merely sentimental. No! They are very demanding. If you are going to be compassionate, be prepared for action” (values.com). When one thinks of compassion, sympathy and sorrow come to mind. However, compassion also is accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. This can be accomplished by standing up for what one believes is right. Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee deeply develops her theme that compassion is understanding someone else’s perspective and using this compassion to stand up against society.
In life, situations arrive that force us to make tough choices. Sometimes those choices are not what we feel are compassionate or morally right. We make these decisions to save ourselves. These are decisions of self-preservation, and they override compassion. Tadeusz Borowski depicts these choices in his book This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. He shows that when people are put in the choice of doing what’s right or preserving their life, one is preferred over the other. Would they rather save their selves or just watch others be sent to their death. In the novel, the narrator wrestles with his decisions and like Borowski suffers from them.
Poverty is a potential outcome for everyone. It’s sneaky and many people fall victim to it every year. No one believes that they have the potential to fall into debt, but it can happen through a string of bad luck, time running short, and other possibilities that can’t be controlled. People who are struggling with difficulty believe that there is no way out because no one will help them. However, there are ways for us, as a society, to help those who are short on income receive the help that they need. Many of the impoverished are thought to be slackers, addicts, or self-destructive to their lives. Society can help each other by dismembering the stereotypes given to people who are underneath the “Poverty Line” that they used as wedges between the classes. Labels given to those who’re poor have nothing to do with who they are as humans.
Essayist, Lars Eighner, in his prize-winning essay, "On Dumpster Diving," discusses his experience as a homeless person. Eighner's purpose is to convey the idea that society needs to be less materialistic and place emphasis on items with "sentimental value" (387). He wants society to not get caught up in materials and live life to the fullest. Eighner creates an informative and educated tone to convince readers that dumpster diving is a honest, not greedy or selfish, "modern form of self-reliance" (386).
She says he has “gray, bushy eyebrows” and smells of “stale cigarettes and urine” (Asher 41). Apparently his urine scent takes over the small, overheated room. Instead of being kicked out, the owner of the shop approached him with a steaming coffee in a Styrofoam cup and small bag of an unidentified offering. He accepts the offer and leaves the café. This details a common value of compassion at its finest. At the end of the essay, Asher implies that true compassion is learn through “adversity that becomes sofamiliar that we begin to identify and empathize with it” (Asher 42). The author believes one is not born with compassion but is felt after experiences and learned.
On 1/13/16, I watched the TED Talk of Gregory Boyle, “Compassion and Kinship,” a founder and executive director of Homeboy Industries. He explained how we should form a relationship with others so that we can come together as one rather than being enemies towards each other. Specifically he claimed that having kinship and compassion breaks down barriers it allows people who don’t fit society’s standards know that their life has value, meaning, and worth. As he said, “How can we achieve a certain kind of compassion that stands in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it, for the measure of our compassion lies not in our service of those on the margins but in our willingness to see ourselves and kinship with them and mutuality.” Although some people believe that once they choose to make bad decisions, they have
Which is quite different then the way many people view homelessness. Ascher also uses a lot of words that have positive connotations such as “lucky”, ”joy” and “faith” when describing him and his surroundings, which helps to illustrate a certain picture of the homeless man and the way he views his solitude. I mostly agree with her portrayal of The Box Man, because I can relate with the fact that loneliness is not a reason for unhappiness. For me personally being alone has never been a source of unhappiness in fact I actually find my alone time to be quite refreshing and is what I long for after a long day of interacting with people.
He writes, “Although I hope to get off the streets so that Lizabeth can have a long and comfortable old age, I know this hope is not very realistic.” We pity the lack of a home with its warmth and familiarity for both the author and his dog. Even though we can see he does not mind being homeless and Dumpster diving, there is still a sense of emptiness that comes to mind. We pity those who are homeless because there is usually a negative connotation with being homeless. They were laid off, they have an addiction, or they are mentally unstable. Regardless of the fact that the readers’ know this is not the case, there is still the notion that people are deserving of things unless they have truly done something to not deserve it. Eighner continues with, “The things I find in the Dumpsters, the love letters and ragdolls of so many lives, remind me of this lesson.” The full context of the quote, is that nothing is really permanent. The author knows that harboring things while homeless is pointless because he has, “Lost everything but the clothes I was wearing and Lizabeth.” He can not really hold sentiment to objects considering he’s constantly on the move. While Eighner is not asking the audience to feel guilty or mournful that he has come across numerous, pitiful stories, the audience is still moved by the stories. It might even remind the readers
The question is, what is poverty? Poverty is about not having enough money to meet basic needs of life, including food, clothing, and shelter. Nevertheless I believe that poverty is much more that not having enough money. The World Bank Organization describes poverty as, “Poverty is hunger. Poverty is the lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty
Has anyone ever considered thinking about what the world is really going through? How many people don’t have the necessities in order to survive? If so, what are these people going through? Poverty is the state of one who lacks a standard or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. Sometimes events occur that changes a person’s perspective on life. Poverty is one that can have a huge effect on not only one person, but also the people around him/her. Over half of the world is going through this tragedy and we, being the ones who created it, have the responsibility to end it.