Cycle Of Poverty Essay

Words: 942
Pages: 4

When people are so poor that they do not know what to do with their life, they end up harming themselves in some sort of way. Living below the poverty line puts both your physical and emotional health in jeopardy. The lower class undergoes the cycle of poverty because of the government. People living in poverty feel so trapped in the cycle of poverty that they resort to self harm to try and feel a sense of control. Usually, the people in poverty do not care about themselves and feel like life is not worth living. Both the proles in 1984 and the lower class in today’s society experience the process of victimization by the government to keep them trapped in their class status, ultimately causing them to resort to self harm as a way of accepting …show more content…
In 1984, Winston quickly learns about the role of the proles in society. Winston reflects, “...they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern” (Orwell 71). The government enforces a constant cycle of poverty that has become their way of life. The proles go through the motions of life, without knowing how to escape. After going through the continuous cycle of poverty, the proles actually believe that there is really no way to escape. Today, the people in poverty are also trapped with no way of breaking free. Metcalf was both aware of and significantly affected by the never ending cycle of poverty. Fessler claims, “Like many before her, she carried her poverty into adulthood, doing odd jobs with periods of homelessness and hunger. But more disturbing is that poverty is now starting to take its toll on her children, especially her eldest daughter” (Fessler). In other words, being poor is how Metcalf was raised, and therefore all she knows. Metcalf grew up living in the cycle of poverty and is now passing it onto her daughter, which shows how poverty is an endless pattern that cannot be broken even through multiple