During the captivating memoir, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich efficiently uses language to depict a sense of the life, culture, and time of the novel. The author begins her journey of investigating poverty in the age of welfare reform and addresses the time of the novel by writing, “According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, in 1998- the year I started this project…” (Ehrenreich 3). This statement allows readers to know the time frame of the journalist’s endeavor. In addition, Ehrenreich integrated statistics that refer to the time when the experiment took place; hence, people know exactly when the story took place. Next, she conveys the extreme gap between the rich and the poor through her vivid langauge. Ehrenreich’s low-class
