The Lens of Poverty

Carolyn Chute’s The Beans of Egypt, Maine is not pleasant to read. At no point are readers content with the character’s poverty that has forced them to live without morals. Yet the poverty and physical decay is not what bothers readers. Instead, it is the notion that Americans can and do live like this. From the squalor in which they live to the incest that is rampant throughout the novel, readers are constantly on edge. Chute’s novel introduces readers to a type of poverty that probably is not seen by the average American.

In class on Monday, our discussion led us to ask why Chute wrote the novel. Although it is undoubtedly important to confront real poverty, I think it also may be beneficial to see poverty from an analytical and removed prospective, which writing allows. When faced with real poverty, I hope my first instinct would be to be sympathetic to their plight. In this case, I would be driven to help out at first on an individual level. No longer could I compare them to “middle class” life because there would be few similarities.

However, when you read about poverty and are presented with their struggles on a moral level, I think you are forced to look at it from an analytic lens. Rather than questioning the individuals, you are forced to look at the larger insitutions that failed them. By comparing the lives of characters in the “culture of poverty” to my middle-class existence, I would be struck by the dissimilarities that are allowed to flourish in the same state.

I do not think I can look out my window and see true poverty. Yes, there are people that need help. Yes, there are families that struggle every day. By no means do I think people in Waterville have it easy. I think we as Colby students are just really lucky.