Is Poverty Easy?

A detailed Summary of Is Poverty Easy?

Is poverty easy? Some say yes and argue that the poor have so few things to worry about: food and shelter. People say that the poor have little money that they do not think what to do with it and who might be taking it away secretively. Yet, if one drives through their local downtown area and scans the area, one can see that being poor is not easy; rather it is probably the hardest obstacle in life. In George Orwell's Down and Out In Paris and London, Orwell tells a personal experience with poverty and his outlook of it. Even Orwell himself, like many people, "thought it [poverty] would be quite simple." But as the days past without adequate food and shelter he began to realize that "it is extraordinarily complicated."

Orwell's first encounter with poverty was the lack of a social life. People on the streets would look at his clothes and then shun him. He suddenly realized his clothes put him "instantly into a new world" (129). He also noticed for the first time "how the attitude of women varies with a man's clothes. When a badly dressed man passes them they shudder away from him with a quite frank movement of disgust, as though he were a dead cat" (129). I realize this phenomenon happening al

After George Orwell's encounter with poverty, he became aware of the hardships that come with poverty: finding food and shelter, dealing with social issues, and attempting to come out of it. In today's society, it is practically the same. When we are driving down the streets of Downtown LA and see a person dressed in rags, we despise them and quickly drive by. When we see a person with a squeegy in one hand and a bucket of water in the other, we quickly take a different route. All of these actions affect the poor because that is the way they make their money to survive daily. By purposely ignoring the poor, we are making their lives harder because they will never be able to get themselves out of that hole.

Why do the poverty just dig themselves out of the hole? This crossed Orwell's mind several times but he finally knew why that was virtually impossible. In order for the poor to get out of the hole is for them to save money. And in order to earn money they can achieve it in three ways: work, steal, or beg. Working is out of the question because no person in the right state of mind would ever higher a tramp to work for them because tramps are known to be lazy. Stealing is illegal and if caught, would be punished severely. So the only practical way of making money was to beg. This, however, was not too easy because of the strict laws governing begging. "As the law now stands, if you approach a stranger and ask him for twopence, he can call a policeman and get you seven days for begging" (172). But if you make some effort to earn that money, "scrawl some chalk daubs on the pavement, or stand about with a tray of matches" (172), you can make money without worrying. However, the money a beggar earns is never enough to be saved because they have to sp

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Approximate Word count = 1197
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English