Comparing The Hillbilly Elegy 'And Three Miles'

While the tales that are told by Americans about wealth are often the grandest, it’s the stories about poverty that, unfortunately, are often the most common. For this to change, these three pieces, suggest that attitudes of the poor themselves and the way that the outside world treats them must change.
2 - 3 paragraphs: The Hillbilly Elegy, Three Miles, and article by Betsy Rader all concern the difference in class and the role this play in the economic upbringing of disadvantaged youth. In each of these, the theme of the American Dream is ever present but there’s also an underlying tale that some people are just destined for failure. All three pieces exhibit tales of those who can’t make it due to either the fact that they live communities …show more content…
One example where Vance uses his family to paint poverty as the individual's responsibility is through his mother. Highlighting this is when he writes “Mom had begun using again. She’d stolen some family heirlooms from her fifth husband to buy drugs.” (P. 237) Vance’s mother had previously been a nurse who’d made good money and had all the tools she needed to succeed. Like J.D establishes throughout his book though, it’s her own choices that lead her life into perpetuating disarray. As a whole, Hillbilly Elegy seems to depict poverty as something that could eliminated through the right choices. While the book mostly focuses on those who couldn’t make the most of their lives, J.D has himself to use as an example of what happens when everything goes right. The quote “At Yale Law School, I felt like my spaceship had crashed in OZ” (p. 204) illustrates how far Vance has really come. The journey that Vance went through to accomplish all that he did is truly the American dream. Through hard work, he rose from a seemingly impossible situation to success. From his writing, it appears like he’s say this success is again, something that could be achieved by many more who are willing not fall into the trap of poverty that so many do. Because of all this, Hillbilly Elegy tells both …show more content…
In Three Miles, the kids attending University Heights start high school at a major disadvantage. They come from communities where going to college and pursuing other academic interests are often not a priority. When the narrator in the podcast says “Melanie left, ran away. She found the experience of being at Fieldston so upsetting she ultimately could not stand to be there,” it’s probable that there are many high schoolers who would’ve had the same reaction. Education in America differs greatly depending on where you go. In impoverished areas, it can seem impossible for kids to find success because they’re often not taught the tools or given the opportunities they need to achieve it and therefore, get trapped in the cycle of poverty. If there were available resources for these schools, it seems reasonable that there wouldn’t be such a big culture shock when students from less affluent areas visit nicer private schools. In areas like these, the concept of the American Dream diverges from other places due to the fact it’s often experienced much less frequently so students simply don’t strive for it in the way that kids from well-off communities do. Three Miles is a story that depicts the negative aspects of wealth and poverty. The aspects that are rarely talked about and the problems never get solved due to people