Post by DiamondPace on Aug 9, 2011 13:04:03 GMT -5
In Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America, the author, Barbara Ehrenreich, describes what it is like to live on minimum wage in America. Between switching from low quality job to low quality job and dealing with less than rude co-workers and bosses, Ehrenreich gives us the idea that shame and humiliation keeps low wage workers in their place. To the narrator, the lifestyle is horrendous and a shock. She would never imagine living like this for the rest of her life. She states, “If some enterprising journalist wants to test the low-wage way of life in darkest Idaho or Louisiana, more power to her.” She is defeated in her journey to Louisiana and Idaho, and determines she isn’t strong enough to live there under the conditions she was currently living under. After being used to a comfortable life in her hometown as a well-paid journalist, her worries were few and of little importance. However, her co-workers have a different view on their life in the minimum wage community. A worker, Colleen, states, “I don’t mind, really, because I guess I am a simple person, and I don’t want what they have. I mean, it’s nothing to me. But what I would like is to be able to take a day off now and then…if I had to…and still be able to buy groceries the next day.” To her, she was fine living the way she did, as long as she can still do just that: live. The lack of luxuries in her life was not a problem for her.
However, Ehrenreich realizes that maybe life is not only like this for the low class white women in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. This life also might be a part of the lives of entire races. She stated, “Maybe, it occurs to me, I’m getting a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be black.” This is one of the few times race plays a role in Nickel and Dimed. Ehrenreich points out that class is much more fixed than society makes it out to be, and being a low-class maid is similar to the oppression put on minorities. All in all, it may just come down to the roles society wants us to play. Different races have their place, and that America wants to keep it that way.
The narrator also complains that the new lifestyle has altered even the way she acts. She does not even recognize her personality after being subjected to the cruelty and disappointments of the new lifestyle. She states, “This is not me, at least not any version of me I’d like to spend much time with, just as my tiny coworker is probably not usually a bitch.” She realizes one of the most dreadful parts of being a low-wage employee: she has been changed from within, for the worse. This was not a life-changing, eye-opening, inspiring experience, nor was it a minor experiment solely done for research that had no direct affect on her. Her new life was dreadful to say the least, and caused her to become a person she no longer knew.
However, Ehrenreich realizes that maybe life is not only like this for the low class white women in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. This life also might be a part of the lives of entire races. She stated, “Maybe, it occurs to me, I’m getting a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be black.” This is one of the few times race plays a role in Nickel and Dimed. Ehrenreich points out that class is much more fixed than society makes it out to be, and being a low-class maid is similar to the oppression put on minorities. All in all, it may just come down to the roles society wants us to play. Different races have their place, and that America wants to keep it that way.
The narrator also complains that the new lifestyle has altered even the way she acts. She does not even recognize her personality after being subjected to the cruelty and disappointments of the new lifestyle. She states, “This is not me, at least not any version of me I’d like to spend much time with, just as my tiny coworker is probably not usually a bitch.” She realizes one of the most dreadful parts of being a low-wage employee: she has been changed from within, for the worse. This was not a life-changing, eye-opening, inspiring experience, nor was it a minor experiment solely done for research that had no direct affect on her. Her new life was dreadful to say the least, and caused her to become a person she no longer knew.