Unveiling Poverty

“Slumdog Millionaire”

All throughout history and all over the world, poverty plagues the world. People continually seek solution to this, including Jonathan Swift in his writing, A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for making them Beneficial to the Public. While Swift writes about poverty in Ireland, it is not the only country suffering. India is another country dealing with a poor economy and the movie Slumdog Millionaire shows this through the flashbacks of a homeless child named Jamal. Relating Jamal’s life events to the ideas brought up by Jonathan Swift help unveil the dark truths of poverty and stir emotions to find a solution.

Desperate to end his impoverished lifestyle, Jamal Malik became a contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. After each question, life experiences return to him and help him find the right answer. The movie opens on a ghetto part of India filled with crowded streets and beggars around every corner. “It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rages,” writes Swift, seemingly describing Jamal’s flashback. After observing the poor environment, Jamal grew up in, the first question is introduced.

When the famous Indian movie star, Amitalo came to town, the streets flushed to his location as if he was a magnet attracting metal. It was through this craze that Jamal remembered having to jump into human feces because of the city’s poor sanitation to meet his idol. From this memory, Jamal was able to answer the question.

Because Jamal had not received a proper education, he was forced to use a lifeline when asked to recall a famous Indian saying. Not relevant to his life, the knowledge was not necessary for him to live.

Another question was answered when asked what a Hindu God was holding. Jamal recalled watching his mother as she was murdered. Running through the streets, Jamal saw a child dressed like the God holding a bow and an arrow. From then on, Jamal was forced to live on his own without his mother, making his life even more difficult. “Mothers…are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants: who as they grow up [and] turn thieves for want of work,” but without his mother, the burden was passed to Jamal and his brother Salim.

Jamal continues to answer questions using accounts from his own life that illustrate situations Jonathan Swift writes about. Both sought to end poverty and seek better lives for those who had nothing. Through Slumdog Millionaire, one can view the poor environments that A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for making them Beneficial to the Public tries to address. Poverty eliminates jobs, strengthens religion, and ends conflict, and the problem is too obvious and rampant to be ignored.

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Applied for College

I applied for college last night after finishing up two essays…I’m going to Texas State! Hopefully, at least.

I’ll be attending Texas State University in San Marcos next fall to study Studio Art and earn a teacher’s degree.

My whole life I wanted to be an English teacher, but this past year or two of writing essay after essay non-stop kind of beat the love out of me. :\ But I love art just as much, so it’s all good. 😀

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Artistic Voice

Expression is everything. A person is who he is because he expresses himself to be that way. Without expression, thoughts would remain with their owners, ideas would never leave their creators’ minds, inventions would cease to be created, and art would not exist. Language would serve no purpose and would, therefore, become extinct. Without expression, people would be forced into isolation, unable to retrieve or accept information, feelings, or ideas from another person.

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Proud Solution

With the gentle rocking motion of the school bus persuading me from side to side, I began to visualize my schedule in my mind. Staring into the cloudless blue sky lit by the late afternoon sun, I planned to complete my homework the moment I got home, finish my remaining chores, and continue to work on my college applications. The slight clanking of the two flute cases clutched in my arms reminded me to leave some time to practice my instrument. After thanking the bus driver for the ride as I always did, I stepped out and began to walk home thinking that I had a busy night ahead of me and I needed to manage my time well. Continuing along the sidewalk and around the corner, I began to receive the beauty of the day. There was a clear sky above allowing the trees to gently sway in full color and inviting the birds to share their vocal talents. Gentle, warm whiffs of air brushed past my face and played with my long hair a bit as I continued my trek.

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Opening Innocent Eyes

Through a child’s untouched eyes, life is a different view. Colors are splattered all about, bright, vibrant, unique, and colorful. Lines run in every direction leading the eye from one interesting object to the next. To children, our planet is a wondrous sight, never a bore, and intricately beautiful, but as they grow, they gradually begin to lose this sensitive awareness. As my years have passed, my appreciation for the beauty of the world around me has developed and grown, not perished. I continue to view life through the eyes of a child, innocent, creative, and filled with wonder. With a vivid imagination, I have learned to take in my observations and add to them with my own creative style. Over the years I have relied on creativity to express my interpretation of life and to express myself. My skills have improved, my knowledge has expanded, and I have allowed my talent to shine. Art is a gift not only to the artist, but also to anyone who takes in the artist’s work, viewing his gift to the world.

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Controlled Insanity

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low,” writes George Orwell in his book, 1984. From within the pages of his book, Orwell clearly demonstrates this trend by creating three distinct social classes following the upper, middle, and lower class system, the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the proletarians, respectively. By granting each class different benefits and privileges, Oceania fosters inequality among its citizens to keep the society frozen in a moment in time, a moment they see as beneficial and progressive in their eyes. With the Inner Party cautiously defending its position, the Outer Party will forever work under its control, and the proles will always retreat to the bottom of the social pyramid.

Limited to 6 million members, the Inner Party consists of less than two percent of the population of Oceania. With spacious living quarters, personal servants, pleasant food and drink, and more privacy, the Inner Party members enjoy a better quality of life than that of the Outer Party members or of the proles. While the members of the Inner Party regulate Ingsoc and run the Thought Police, the members of the Outer Party work the jobs assigned to them and live under constant monitoring. This thirteen percent of the population is considered to be the worst off of the three, although it represents the middle class, because of its restriction of personal freedoms and lack of comforts, such as those the Inner Party enjoys. Even though the proles are considered the lower class of Oceania and live in poverty while working physically tough jobs and receiving little to no education, they enjoy greater freedoms than those of Outer Party members. Free to pleasure themselves how they desire, the proles experience the comforts of family life and keep their humanity more than any of the other classes. “Proles are animals and free,” the Party states, while Winston, a rebellious member of the Outer Party declared, “Proles remained human.” 85 percent of the population is considered harmless and incapable of complex thought, regulation, or rebellion, and is therefore left to work and breed in their own ignorance. The proles are not required to show support for the Party, wear uniforms, or speak Newspeak. Generally objects of contempt, they are not bothered and are limitedly monitored to keep them in their place. By encasing the social pyramid in ice, human equality can be forever averted and nothing will change in Oceania.

Orwell explains that all throughout history, the upper class has strived to maintain its position, while the middle class tries to overthrow the upper class, and the lower class struggles to even survive and wishes to abolish all social barriers. Ingsoc, practiced in Oceania, is meant to perpetuate unfreedom and inequality so that history will be frozen and positions will be safeguarded. Social classes have been trapped in an unbreakable cycle over the course of history, and Oceania has put an end to these repetitions so that the High may forever hold its status and rebellions will no longer ruin the fragile structure. Aware of the threat of outbreaks, the Inner Party began monitoring the lower classes and infesting their minds with the allusion that all are treated equally. “The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed,” Orwell explained. Because discontent is not an expressed feeling, political changes do not strike the society. In this frozen state, progression is not made as resources are swallowed by the war, and those proving to be possibly dangerous are vaporized by the Thought Police. Without an opposition, the Inner Party members will forever reign.

By maintaining a functional level of inequality, Oceania fosters a stable balance among its three social classes. “If human equality is to be for ever averted – if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently – then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.” Society will forever run in this manner, and the social classes of George Orwell’s fictional world will continuously live as present, progress halted, inequality fresh, and control, a scar of the Inner Party.

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