Is Being Taken Care Of Enough for an Individual to Maintain Their Dignity?
No friends, no family, and no goal in life. This was the reality of hundreds of paupers living under the care of a wealthy household in 1898. The authenticity of their situation is shown in Alden Nowlan’s The Dollar Woman, a play about the struggle of living as a poor citizen in Sussex, New Brunswick in the late 1800’s. Being taken care of is not enough for someone to live a happy and meaningful life. While having someone look after you can in some cases be beneficial, you can still be humiliated, abused, and live a very unhealthy life.
Humiliation is one of the biggest ways someone can lose their dignity. Especially when done publically, it can be extremely dehumanizing. …show more content…
In “Hurt”, which is also written by Alden Nowlan, the protagonist, Stevie, goes under abuse all the time. “Stevie’s old man yelled at him plenty but only when he was drunk” (Nowlan). In “Hurt” Stevie is described as a very unstable and unsure kid. He is not like the other children. He sometimes doesn’t go to school, and the only family he is known to have is his alcoholic and abusing father, who can’t keep a job to provide for him. Stevie is being “taken care of” by his father, but that is clearly not enough for him to develop normally and maintain his …show more content…
You can develop sickness, disease, live in constant pain, and die at a young age. This happened to many paupers whose owners did not provide the care of which they were supposed to. As you can assume, living an unhealthy lifestyle as they did, would lead to a massive blow to the pauper’s dignity. Being unhealthy means that they feel bad, look bad, and other people generally don’t want to be around them. It is terrible, and no one should have to live like that. An example of how bad living like this can be is shown in William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper”. “So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.”(Blake) This poem is about children whose job is to sweep chimneys for the rich. This is awful for the kids, because while cleaning they will inhale a great deal of soot. The inhalation of this can lead to lung cancer, asthma, and an increased chance of an early death. As you can imagine, sick children must live a very sad life, and I’m sure that the chimney sweepers and their underprivileged families must not have much dignity
No friends, no family, and no goal in life. This was the reality of hundreds of paupers living under the care of a wealthy household in 1898. The authenticity of their situation is shown in Alden Nowlan’s The Dollar Woman, a play about the struggle of living as a poor citizen in Sussex, New Brunswick in the late 1800’s. Being taken care of is not enough for someone to live a happy and meaningful life. While having someone look after you can in some cases be beneficial, you can still be humiliated, abused, and live a very unhealthy life.
Humiliation is one of the biggest ways someone can lose their dignity. Especially when done publically, it can be extremely dehumanizing. …show more content…
In “Hurt”, which is also written by Alden Nowlan, the protagonist, Stevie, goes under abuse all the time. “Stevie’s old man yelled at him plenty but only when he was drunk” (Nowlan). In “Hurt” Stevie is described as a very unstable and unsure kid. He is not like the other children. He sometimes doesn’t go to school, and the only family he is known to have is his alcoholic and abusing father, who can’t keep a job to provide for him. Stevie is being “taken care of” by his father, but that is clearly not enough for him to develop normally and maintain his …show more content…
You can develop sickness, disease, live in constant pain, and die at a young age. This happened to many paupers whose owners did not provide the care of which they were supposed to. As you can assume, living an unhealthy lifestyle as they did, would lead to a massive blow to the pauper’s dignity. Being unhealthy means that they feel bad, look bad, and other people generally don’t want to be around them. It is terrible, and no one should have to live like that. An example of how bad living like this can be is shown in William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper”. “So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.”(Blake) This poem is about children whose job is to sweep chimneys for the rich. This is awful for the kids, because while cleaning they will inhale a great deal of soot. The inhalation of this can lead to lung cancer, asthma, and an increased chance of an early death. As you can imagine, sick children must live a very sad life, and I’m sure that the chimney sweepers and their underprivileged families must not have much dignity