King of the Hill Essay

King of the Hill during the Great Depression

With in the film "King of the Hill," by Steven Soderbergh, it captures the struggles both children and parents had to go through, during the Great Depreion. There is a point in the film at which Aaron, the main character, is so hungry he cuts out magazine pictures of food, arranges them on a plate and eats them. This single event may seem a little extreme, however, this is just one of the many examples that shows what life was like during the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, children suffered a lot. They no longer had the joys and freedoms of childhood, and often shared their parents’ burdens and issues on money. From the beginning of the film, Aaron is shown to be a charming liar due to the fact that he is not like the rest of his fellow classmates. Many of his classmates are rich, therefore do not face the struggles that Aaron faces, due to not having the money to get the things his family needs or desires. Poor students, just like Aaron, often went to school hungry every morning because their families did not have anything to feed them. Because of this Aaron got by from stealing “fat kids lunches” and often constructed fantasies of being wealthy and having a great family. During the Great Depression the unemployment rate skyrocketed, reaching upwards of about twelve million people unemployed. This forced many poor families to send their children to work in order to meet their financial obligations. In the films case however, they sent the youngest boy, Sullivan, to live with other family members to down size the expenses they had each month. Soon after this though, things fall apart even more when Aaron's mother had to go back to the hospital and his father leaving to become a traveling sales man. Suddenly Aaron was left to fend for himself, being penniless and facing to be lockout over unpaid rent. The threat of losing their apartment is another example of something that thousands faced. As the economic crash of the 1930’s dragged on, more and more people were ruined. High taxes, drastically rising unemployment and mortgage foreclosures were heavy burdens people were left to overcome. Those factors forced people to either move into Hoovervilles or become transients, carrying or either leaving behind their belongings. With in the Hoovervilles and all over town, there was a common factor that both the rich and the poor shared, and that was diseases. Even thought the rich were exposed to these diseases, they had the resources to get treated, unlike like the poor. Children and of the Great Depression were malnourished and ill, as their families could not afford necessary medical care or even food. Some children were sent to live with relatives who had more resources, and yet others were left abandoned or orphaned. This can be seen in Ella, a lonely girl who suffers badly from epilepsy yet her mother cannot afford the medication she needs, having to her family to make the decisions to go live with her Aunt and Uncle. Researchers have analyzed age-specific mortality rates and rates due to six causes of death that composed about two-thirds of total mortality in the 1930s: cardiovascular and renal diseases, cancer, influenza and pneumonia, tuberculosis, motor vehicle traffic injuries, and suicide. The association between improving health and economic slowdowns was true for all ages, and for every major cause of death except one: suicide (“Life and Death During the Great Depression"). Sadly, hundreds of people could not handle the stress of losing everything and in result,

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