Anh Tran
Professor Kenneth Brady
English 099
September 29, 2011
Poverty and Shame
In “Not poor, just broke”, Richard Gregory learned about the cruelty of poverty very early in life that he had plenty of food, clothes, lived in poor condition, and had been shame for his first time. Gregory had it rough in the early years of his schooling process. He lived as a poor minority. Because of his poverty, he feels hungry all day as well as he just had one set of clothes only. Richard mentions to the reader that he lived in a house without water and the pipes were frozen frequently. Before the incident at Gregory’s school, he was innocent and unaware of social differences. His innocents was replaced by a sense of shame when his teacher pointing out his poverty and his lack of father, causing him to feel shame for the first time. For that reason, The Poverty brings Richard a lot of troubles, including the lack of food, clothes, bad living conditions, and shame. First, the author gave reader a lot of hints in his hungry. Nobody understands that the reason why he doesn't function like everyone else was because when he gets up in the morning he doesn't have breakfast. He was so hungry that he had to "sneak into the cloakroom and steal a bit of some kid's lunch out of a coat pocket.” He was hunting for anything could eat, even "paste". Because of his hunger, Richard also had to ask for food from the relief truck. Moreover, Richard felt very bad about how poor what his description is "pregnant" means sick with hunger. Therefore, poverty made Richard did not have enough food. Second, poor Richard has no money even to buy other clothes, and shoe. He has just only one outfit. Initially, the story talks about how Richard likes Helene because she is "clean." It then goes on to state the many things that he does to make sure he looks clean. For example “I washed my socks and shirt every night.” "Because they were the only clothes I had.” Consequently, lack of clothes is effects poverty.
Third, the other significant effect of poverty is poor living conditions. Richard lived in a house without water and the pipes were frozen frequently. He’d go to "Mister Ben's grocery store," and scoop ice from the machine. He would then wait for it to melt so he could wash his clothes. He'd put them on in the morning "wet or dry." He did all this so that he could have clean clothes, just like Helene. Every night, he had to sleep in the bed with five other people. Moreover, Richard had to do a lot
