Poverty Is a State of Mind

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Poverty is a state of mind “Poverty is a state of mind” is written by Bernard Hare from a little town called Leeds and revolves around a life in and out of poverty. At the very first line in his essay he writes: “I was born into poverty….” Through the essay it appears to him that poverty isn’t something that you are born into. Poverty is something that can be caused by you. We see this, when he says:” “I was becoming aware that there might be a self-inflicted element to some people’s poverty.” He saw this at home in Leeds where his father worked in the coalmine and the mother in a store. They both had jobs but somehow they were poor anyway. This was basically because they sat at the pub drinking beers and smoking cigarettes every time they got the chance. Even though Bernard Hare starts the essay by saying that he was born into poverty the reader gets the feeling, that he wasn’t as poor as he says when he was a child. Later on in the essay he says: “For the first 10 years of my life, I had little idea that we were poor.” He doesn’t sound sure, that his family really was poor, and that’s why the reader gets this feeling. They didn’t have a lot of money, but they had a lot of other things like love, warmth and so on. And he also says this:” As far as I was concerned, we had warmth, love, shelter, enough to eat – except towards the end of the week…” It sounds like they had everything they needed, and more than that. Because later on in the essay he says: “We got our first black and white television in 1968, then mum tightened up security a little.” It doesn’t sound like they are that poor, when they can afford a black and white TV, but on the other hand, the black and white TV came out in the 1950s. After his been telling the reader about his childhood, and the fact that he’s family was poor, it seems like Bernard Hares somehow gets aware of his social heritage.

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