Empathy Of Poverty

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Breann Davis English IV AP Mrs. Cheney October 2, 2011/ “Poverty of Empathy” Many people lack the necessary humanity to understand and comprehend how other people feel. It could go so far as for people to just not care what other people feel. Some people don’t feel that it is important for them worry about anyone else but themselves, this is called selfishness. Other people don’t worry about how others feel because they are simply numb to their own feelings, so another person having or showing feelings seems absurd to them. The act of understanding or sympathizing with another’s feeling is called empathy. As for mentioned, many people have a lack, or poverty, of empathy. In Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”, he portrays two different types of people, one that shows empathy and one that lacks it. In the story there is an old man that is obviously going through a difficult time, though the circumstances are not elaborated on, and he has tried to deal with it by suicide and drinking. The older waiter, the one who has empathy for the old man, defends him to the younger waiter whom only seems to care about himself and that fact that he never gets home at a decent hour. The younger waiter is stumped by the fact that someone with a large sum of money would try to commit suicide, without taking into account the things that are transpiring in the old man’s life. The older waiter at least takes into account the fact that the old man is alone and without a job or pastime. When I was about eight years old I was beaten by my step-father, he was taken to jail and then bailed out, he was allowed x number of hours of community service and no contact until I am an adult. The next time I saw my mother after the fact she blamed me for everything and told me that because of me her marriage would never be the same. Instead of having the reaction that most
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