Friday, April 25, 2008
Final Responses To Nickel And Dimed
Having finished Nickel And Dimed, what are some of you final reactions to the text? Barbara Ehrenreich has presented her account of the low-wage working conditions in America through her experiences, in what ways do you think her perspective of low-income America Changed throughout the novel? In what ways do you think her experiences reflect closely what the situations are for "real" poor people in real life? How did your views change regarding low-wage workers in general? Finally, Barbara ultimately failed in her ability to sustain a low-income lifestyle despite her declared "cheats," does her inability to acheive this in any way affect your reaction to the novel? What is your opinion of Ehrenreich now?
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After finishing Nickel and Dimed, I have formed certain opinions about Ehrenreich which are somewhat contradictory. At first, I admired that she was actually putting herself into low-wage workers’ shoes in order to better understand their situations and gain more knowledge of the overall lifestyle. However, as her story unfolds, the little ways she cheats angers me somewhat; by cheating, she is cheating on her experience as “one of them” as well. She isn’t really getting the full experience of how it would be to be a low-wage worker and, therefore, not giving us the full experience either. However, she does record stories of co-workers who actually open up about their situations, but they never really give her their life stories, so it is hard to really know just how bad it gets for them. In all, though, her novel sheds light on their situations and the conditions around America for low-wage workers and the information and experiences she has provided for me to read have definitely altered my impressions of low-wage workers overall. The stereotype I had of low-wage workers before I read this novel were bleak and harsh and pretty unforgiving and, as her novel points out at the end, I feel the “shame” she describes as an expected reaction by many of her readers-- “shame at our own dependency, in this case, on the underpaid labor of others” (221). I am ashamed that I let my parents’ opinions influence my open-mindedness on the subject and I am ashamed it prevented me from further researching the situation. I feel very ignorant for how I held them in my mind prior to this class and reading this book, and carry a deeper respect for low-wage workers and their situations now. So, although I don’t put my full respect into Ehrenreich for how she approached her research, I respect that she put herself out there, found out more, and wrote a novel to inform other people too scared to find out for themselves what it is like to be a low-wage worker.
Personally, I was very disappointed in the novel Nickel and Dimed. I think that the idea of this novel is great, but a more conducive study may have been more affective in achieving her goal of understanding low-income workers and their lifestyles. I was disappointed in the fact that Ehrnreich was not able to complete the study properly or even at all. I think that now maybe she has a better understanding of what it means to be a blue-collar worker as well as some of her assumptions and feelings towards low-income workers has changed. I think that Ehrnreich was confused by the outcomes of her observations. She didn’t understand or take into consideration some obvious points of being a low-income worker. I think perhaps she feels as if the low-income population isn’t disappearing, but yet being ignored. I also feel as if now Ehrnreich sees how difficult it is to live as a blue-collar worker who is scraping to live. Although I don’t think that she experienced what it truly means to be a low-income worker, I think now she understands how much more difficult it is and how it is nearly impossible to do so. Personally, I feel as if this is a very inaccurate account of what it means to be a low-income worker, but from her mistakes, I feel as if we gain insight into the actual struggles involved with being a blue-collar worker. I feel like Ehrnreich tried at first, but then she seemed to give up...settling into the comfort of knowing that this isn’t her real life. When it is your real life, I think this story would have been told a little differently.
As disappointed as I was every time Ehrenreich “cheated” a little and at the end when she gives up, I still think she did something important. She shed light on this part of America that many people don’t know about or acknowledge. I knew that there were people who barely scraped by financially by working the type of jobs Ehrenreich did, but reading someone’s first hand account gave me a better perspective. Even if it was not completely authentic, I now have a deeper understanding and much more compassionate for people in the same situation Ehrenreich tried to simulate.
I think Ehrenreich’s experiences trying to find affordable housing closely reflect what low-wage workers actually go through. She didn’t have any advantages over anyone in trying to find an affordable place to live.
Ehrenreich’s inability to fully finish out her low-income living experiment disappointed me. As a reader I felt betrayed. She gone into this telling us that she was going to stick with it and she did a good job up until the end. She gave up. It seemed out of character for her to give up. At the same time, the fact that she gave up serves to show how hard life really is for the low-wage work force. The last line of, “Selling in Minnesota,” sums up Ehernreich’s experience, “I still think we could of done something, she and I, if I could of afforded to work at Wal-Mart a little longer.”
I think that Ehrenreich having to cheat shows how incredibly hard it is to live on such a low income. I do not think she even knew how hard of a task she was about to undertake. From the cheating I think she loses a lot of respectablilty did not live the low-income life 100%. This makes it hard for the book to be completely accurate by any means.
On the better side though, she does give at least some first hand experience and is not merely interviewing people or observing them as a sociologist would and that definitely counts for something. It also shows that Ehrenreich is a very adventurous person who does not want to write about something she has not experienced, which I find very respectable. Even though her experience is not perfectly accurate, the fact that she made the effort to experience living on a low-income first hand and saw how incredibly hard it was, definitely says something good about her.
I personally enjoyed Nickel and Dimed. I found it interesting that a middle class, average American like many of us, would become a low wage worker to qualitatively research and understand what problems the working poor face. She cleared the assumption that I had about having a job as the key to rising out of poverty and maintaining a home. Often times, Ehrenreich had two jobs and was still unable to make ends meet, even with no dependents. I think she did a great job in conveying how difficult it is to get by with low wage earnings. By her taking on the role of an undercover low wage worker and telling the stories of other co-workers, I was able to sympathize more, especially now that I know even she struggled with a Ph.D. to produce satisfactory work for little pay.
I feel as though she has an increased understanding of the working poor issues with maintaining a home and a meal. She realizes the shame that they have, the hard work they put forth, the rights that are taken away, and the incompatibility of low wage earnings with increasing housing costs. You really get a nice picture of the problems that people in poverty face. As we often forget and overlook, she was able to bring me down to reality by proving that it is very difficult to even low wage earnings out with all the financial necessities of life. Although many low wage workers do not initially start off with �start-up� money, the contrast is still visible.
Her experiences were very tangible and presented a real life perspective to me. Even though this was an experiment for her and she doesn�t have to face these issues everyday, I respect her for taking that extra step from interviewing and surveying people to becoming that low wage worker. I think we as readers can identify with personal struggles and experiences rather than figures and numbers which are often skewed and not accurate. She could have stayed in the experiment a bit longer to produce more results and findings. However, overall, I think that it was a great experiment that took a lot of will. In the end, her perspectives were changes and so were mine.
I still feel that Ehrenreich conducted a very real-life and difficult experiment. I have gained a great amount of respect for Ehrenreich because I know that myself, as a student as opposed to a writer with a PhD, could not have stuck it out as long as she did. Her will power throughout the entirety of the novel was astonishing to me. Although she "cheated" during the experiment I can see many more opportunities where she easily could have cheated and made this easier for her. I think that the way she conducted the experiment oculd not have been done any better under the circumstances. My views of low income workers has changed in that I see how a very successful person cannot take up the life of one of these people and succeed. I have gained a great deal of respect for these people because the problems that they can come into contact with are problems that I could never have thought up or ever realized could be something people go through on a daily basis. I do not think that her experiences reflect very accurately what the poor really go through, but I also do not think anybody could get closer unless they actually become poor in a real sense, not a fake sense. Although she did not achieve this way of living, my thoughts about this novel are not changed in a negative aspect at all. I actually view this in a brighter light because it is not a "happily ever after" ending. Ehrenreich, as a researcher, set out with a hypothesis, and was proven wrong about it. This shows that she was not doing the experiment in a way that benefited her, but rather in a way that tested the hypothesis in a very educational way.
After finishing Nickel and Dimed, my final reaction is that I thought the overall story concept of the study was as close to being homeless and poor as possible. There was no other way for her to conduct her study without having everything taken away from her in her life. That would be the only possible way for the study to be accurately carried out but the actions that need to be taken are not plausible, possible, or likely to happen. The experience and observations that she has taken away from this study were probably life-changing to her and this study has probably been the closest to actually being homeless than any other study conducted. It was very hard and brave of her to carry out this study so I think she deserves lots of credit for carrying it out. My views have somewhat changed from reading the story. The book gave me insight into how difficult it seems for homeless and poor people to find and obtain a minimum wage job. I respect all of the hard work they must go through in order to earn enough money on a daily basis. From reading the book, it seems very beneficial for people to have friends while in situations like many from the story. Ehrenreich met many people and each relationship changed her life. Ehrenreich set out on a very difficult task and for her to fail at the task did not change my views about the book. It takes lots of courage and perseverance to carry out a study that has this much effect on a person. I think she deserves to be rewarded for doing such a great job of conducting the study and forgotten that she failed at it.
I enjoyed Nickel and Dimed, I though it gave an interesting perspective on the world of the poor.I do think some of it was very subjective and skewed because of who she is, simply being a phD and well educated. Some of the inside knowledge that she provided however was interesting, because I know I was lucky with the low-wage experience I had and now am not currently dealing with that, but some of the issues she had to deal with in the workplace or things that her co-workers had to deal with in the workplace were a little shocking. I think that this was also very effective to me. Sometimes her opinions were very strong, but sometimes the facts of what she learned from people could speak for themselves. Towards the end I think she did try to give up. I think any person truly in her situation would have tried much harder, for example, at the hardware store to learn their way around the plumbing section for better wages than wal-mart. I think she got lazy, while at the same time choosing wal-mart did have a different effect. At this part of the book I did get a little tired of her complaining and it made it less enjoyable to read what she had to say. Overall I think this book still did a good job of portraying the life that a person in poverty leads, if only to a certain extent.
After finishing Nickel and Dime, I have certain thoughts and opinions about Ehrenreich. I really did not like her notion of field of study. To me she was like cheating. At the beginning of the book she herself states that if she has no money left she will just whip out her ATM card and rely on that. She also says that she wants to know what it is to be not on welfare and have kids to feed. She states that she wants to learn how they get by, what their tricks are and how they do it with a minimum wage job. To this I say she is not getting the full experience.This makes it hard for the book to be completely accurate by any means. I believe it would have been better for her to do her research as observatory. I mean in my point of view she really did not gain anything from it besides her book. She got much more information by writing about the actual conversations she had with co workers. The co workers are the ones that feed her all her information because they trusted her that she was one of them. Yet if you think beyond all of this there is also another reason I would have rather have her go out and observe was because she was literally taking the jobs of people who really needed it. She did not need to go and take over a job that could have been for someone with the need of it. I also disliked how she argues that she did a great job when she decided to quit. She gave up. It seemed out of character for her to give up. At the same time, the fact that she gave up is useful to show how hard life really is for the low-wage working class.
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