Jo goodwin parker biography

She defines poverty as a lack — that is living without hope, better foods, medicinal care, proper sanitation, and proper education. It is like an acid that destroys pride, honor, health, and future. Poor people have to live a restless life looking at the dark future of their children. Poverty breaks relationships. Parker had three children.

She had a job. In this essay, she has described her life, living in poverty, and her daily struggles for the sake of her family. She has personally experienced rural poverty and also explains her story from childhood to adulthood using examples drawn from her personal experience. She explains the meaning of poverty in this essay. According to her, Poverty has many faces.

Poverty is living with dirt, living without hope, better foodstuff, medical care, proper sanitation, and proper education. It is like the acid that destroys pride, honor, health, and the future. She described herself as dirty and smelly and did not wear proper clothes. She also says that due to the high cost of essential things, there is no luxuries in her life.

Parker could not even get any help and support from the government agencies because it is not around in her area. Due to the lack of transportation facilities in her area, She does not get help and support from any agencies. So parker says that living in poverty is just like looking into a black future because running life on a daily basis itself is a great challenge.

Under such circumstances, no one can expect a bright future. Parker does not want sympathy but she wants an understanding of her readers about poverty. Because of poverty, she left school at a very early age and got married. After her job, that day she found her youngest covered in fly specks, whose diaper hadn't been changed since morning.

Her next son was playing with the broken glasses. Her eldest son was playing on the edge of the lake. How does Parker try to obtain help, and what problems does she encounter? Paker tries to obtain help by spreading her hands in front of different people and institutions for the sake of her children. Due to the lack of money, she tries her best to find supportive hands most of the time.

To get help, she encounters problems finding the right organisation and person most of the time. She has to move to different organisations.

Jo goodwin parker biography

She has to wait and tell her miserable story again and again. People's opinions and prejudices are her greatest obstacles because these aspects prevent her from getting supportive hands for the sake of her family. Most people don't realise the bitter experience of poverty. For them, the pain of poor people is nothing. They keep on giving their opinions and prejudices against poor people.

In the case of Parker, these opinions and prejudices of people make her fail to get help to run her family. How does Parker defend her inability to get help? How does she discount the usual solutions society has for poverty e. Parker defends her inability to get help through her opinions related to her experiences of poverty. She discounts the usual solutions society has for poverty by sharing her experiences related to welfare, education, and health clinics.

According to her, in the name of welfare, she has to move and spread her hands in many agencies in many places. In these agencies, she has faced shame all the time. She has to prove her poverty time and again. She has to tell her story many times. Sometimes, welfare programmes promise to help, but reaching them takes a lot of time.

In the name of education, school launch programmes are there, but they are of no use. She has experienced her two children's conditions since sending them to school. If we talk about the vital aspects of health clinics, Parker's life is quite far from health clinics' facilities. To get medical help, she has to walk miles. If she asks for someone's help, the helper expects negative things from her.

Thus, Parker is quite away from all three important aspects. Explain the following:. Poverty is looking into a black future. This line, "Poverty is looking into a black future," has been stated by the writer Jo Goodwin Parker in her essay. She has put forward this line for her readers to present her experience related to poverty. Here in this line, the writer is advising all the readers about an ugly and cruel aspect of poverty.

According to her, poverty leads people towards a black future. Poor people have to live a miserable life every day. It is quite difficult to manage proper daily foodstuffs for them. For them, there is no hope for the upcoming future. They keep on spending their lives in disparity, looking into a black future. Poverty breaks expectations and dreams of future days.

By "the poor are always silent", Parker means the helpless state of poor people. In poverty, money plays a very vital role. Money itself is the right solution for all the problems. But, due to a lack of money, poor people feel weaker. They always remain silent in front of others. They have to listen to others words while being silent due to their pathetic state.

What writing strategy does the author use at the beginning of most of the paragraphs? Do you notice a recurring pattern? What is it? In this essay, the author uses her repetition strategy at the beginning of most of the paragraphs. Yes, I notice a recurring pattern. It is the structure of "poverty. Here, with the help of her repetition strategy, she tries to establish a relationship between the woman and the readers.

I am still young. For a time, we had all the things you have. There was a little house in another town, with hot water and everything. Then my husband lost his job. There was unemployment insurance for a while and what few jobs I could get. Soon, all our nice things were repossessed and we moved back here. I was pregnant then. Every week it gets worse.

Nothing is ever fixed. We now had no money. There were a few odd jobs for my husband, but everything went for food then, as it does now. It had been a good one, but could you keep on bringing children in this dirt? Did you ever think how much it costs for any kind of birth control? I knew my husband was leaving the day he left, but there were no good-byes between us.

I hope he has been able to climb out of this mess somewhere. He never could hope with us to drag him down. When I got it, you know how much it was? It was, and is, seventy-eight dollars a month for the four of us; that is all I ever can get. Now you know why there is no soap, no needles and thread, no hot water, no aspirin, no worm medicine, no hand cream, no shampoo.

None of these things forever and ever and ever. So that you can see clearly, I pay twenty dollars a month rent, and most of the rest goes for food. For grits and cornmeal, and rice and milk and beans. I try my best to use only the minimum electricity. If I use more, there is that much less for food. Poverty is looking into a black future. They will turn to other boys who steal to get what they want can already see them behind the bars of their prison instead of behind the bars of my poverty.

Or they will turn to the freedom of alcohol or drugs, and find themselves enslaved. And my daughter? At best, there is for her a life like mine. But you say to me, there are schools. Yes, there are schools. My children have no extra books, no magazines, no extra pencils, or crayons, or paper and the most important of all, they do not have health.

They have worms, they have infections, they have pinkeye all summer. They do not sleep well on the floor, or with me in my one bed. They do not suffer from hunger, my seventy-eight dollars keeps us alive, but they do suffer from malnutrition. Oh yes, I do remember what I was taught about health in school. In some places there is a surplus commodities program.

Not here. The county said it cost too much. There is a school lunch program. But I have two children who will already be damaged by the time they get to school. But, you say to me, there are health clinics. Yes, there are health clinics and they are in the towns. I live out here eight miles from town. I can walk that far even if it is sixteen miles both ways , but can my little children?

My neighbor will take me when he goes; but he expects to get paid, one way or another. I bet you know my neighbor. He is that large man who spends his time at the gas station, the barbershop, and the corner store complaining about the government spending money on the immoral mothers of illegitimate children. Poverty is an acid that drips on pride until all pride is worn away.

Poverty is a chisel that chips on honor until honor is worn away. Some of you say that you would do something in my situation, and maybe you would, for the first week or the first month, but for year after year after year? Even the poor can dream. A dream of a time when there is money. Money for the right kinds of food, for worm medicine, for iron pills, for toothbrushes, for hand cream, for a hammer and nails and a bit of screening, for a shovel, for a bit of paint, for some sheeting, for needles and thread.

Money to pay in money for a trip to town. And, oh, money for hot water and money for soap. A dream of when asking for help does not eat away the last bit of pride. When the office you visit is as nice as the offices of other governmental agencies, when there are enough workers to help you quickly, when workers do not quit in defeat and despair.

I have come out of my despair to tell you this. Remember I did not come from another place or another time. Others like me are all around you. Look at us with an angry heart, anger that will help you help me. Anger that will let you tell of me. The poor are always silent. Can you be silent too? You want people to wonder how you found such a wonderful piece.

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