The Interpretation of
Poverty
(Revised)
Nathalie Escobar
Professor Stafford Gregoire
English 101-0804
th
24 September 2006
Nathalie Escobar
Professor Stafford Gregoire
English 101-0804
24th Spetember 2006
Outline
Title: The Interpretation of Poverty
Introduction
Different ways poverty can be shown
Thesis → In “The Message”, Grandmaster Flash portrays the precise
description of poverty by presenting the reader the living
situation of residents in urban city areas.
Body:
I. The Cost of Survival
- What people had to do in order to survive
- “Crazy lady, livin’ in a bag; Eating out the garbage
piles…”
(Stanza 4 ,Sentences 1-2)
- “She went to the city and got so so seditty / She had to get a
pimp, she couldn’t make it on her own”
(Stanza 4, Lines 7-8)
II. Environment
- Projects surroundings
- The conditions of the projects are as similar outside
- “Junkie’s in the alley way with a baseball bat”
(Stanza 1, Sentence 7)
- “They push that girl in front of the train”
(Stanza 8, Sentence 4)
III. Living Conditions
- Bad living conditions in the projects
- “Broken glass everywhere, People pissing on the stairs, you
know they just don’t care, I can’t take the smell, I can’t
take the noise … Rats in the front room, roaches in the
back”
(Stanza 1, Sentences 1-4 & Sentence 6)
Conclusion: Reaffirm Thesis
Nathalie Escobar
Professor Stafford Grégoire
English 101, Section 0804
24 September 2006
The Interpretation of Poverty
In “The Message”, Grandmaster Flash displayed the projects of his current
era through rap poetry. He wants people from the present that future times to have a
sense of government housing. Grandmaster Flash wanted to show that people from the
projects do have an intellect and that their “language of the streets” has equally valued
knowledge. In order to describe his living to others, he gives an idea of his current
depiction of underprivileged using slang, which others could interpret. In doing this, he
demonstrate uses of imagery, metaphors and euphemism. In “The Message”,
Grandmaster Flash portrays the precise slang description of poverty by presenting to the
reader the living situations of residents in urban areas.
Grandmaster Flash displays how people survive living around the urban
areas. In “The Message”, “Crazy lady, livin’ in a bag / Eating out the garbage
piles…”(Stanza 4, Lines 1-2) illustrates that the lady was literally living in a garbage bag
and eating leftovers from the garbage to garbage to survive. “…used to be a fag-hag”
(Stanza 4, Line 2) portrays that the woman has a sense of beauty, and would be
comfortable around homosexual men than straight men. Grandmaster Flash used the
slang term “fag-hag” to show what the woman used to be and whom she would prefer to
be with but others would make fun of her. It can be a result of how she became insane
and started living on the streets. “She went to the city and got so so seditty / She had to
get a pimp, she couldn’t make it on her own” (Stanza 4, Lines 7-8) illustrates that the
woman went to the city for her everyday living to become a prostitute. However, she
could not survive by herself so she ended up getting a pimp to survive and get to places.
To the peoples’ opinions, having to resort to prostitution, being homeless, etc, was a way
of their cost of survival.
The living situations in urban areas are so unsafe that
people were not only afraid to step out, but also to leave their homes in the projects.
From “The Message” is “Junkie’s in the alley way with a baseball bat” (Stanza 1, Line 7)
defines that the Junkies would do anything to get drugs such as beating up innocent by
standards. A metaphor statement “Me on king kong standin’ on my back” (Stanza 6,
Line 9) is a term used for heroin addicts. Except, others used monkey on their backs, but
the speaker of the poem used “king kong”. He used that term to stress out how huge the
problem was and by representing, that it was difficult for him quit the use of heroin. The
thoughts of the projects being dangerous were underestimated. Other distances such as
the subways, were likewise as horrible. As for the subways conditions were, “They push
that girl in front of the train” (Stanza 8, Line 4). “They” can be refer as to anyone, may be
even people from the projects that pushed the girl. As an observation, “They” apparently
think that pushing a girl would be a kind of entertainment and to others it shows their
masculinity.
Grandmaster Flash illustrated peoples how they would treat the
government housing. With the use of imagery in the poem, it formed a realistic approach
to the readers. The speaker of the poem describes the projects having “Broken glass
everywhere, People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don’t care, I can’t take the
smell, I can’t take the noise … Rats in the front room, roaches in the back” (Stanza 1,
Lines 1-4 & Line 6). In the point of view of the speaker, he was displeased and annoyed
living in the projects and its conditions. However, he has no other choice but to stay with
no source of income. Grandmaster Flash illustrates “Broken glass everywhere” (Stanza
1, Line 1) as in that people breaking the glass either from gun shots, vandalism, etc. The
people of the projects don’t bother fixing it because it would end up being broken again.
“Rats in the front room, roaches in the back” (Stanza 1, Line 6) displays that the
sanitation of the projects was horrible and that garbage of the projects wasn’t being
properly taken care of. The speaker displays the residents’ of the building having no
interests in fixing the condition because they feel that it is not they duty to tidy up. It is
the decision and actions of the people that are willing to maintain positive living
conditions. The reason is that the poverty cannot depend on the government to clean up
after them.
Eventually, urban areas from Grandmaster Flash’s era until now have
drastically changed with appearance and diversity. The living situation of the projects in
the urban areas improved with a vast decrease in violence, drugs, and prostitution.
However, Grandmaster Flash eventually wanted others to acknowledge that people from
the streets are also educated in their own way. The knowledge that the people studied
came from their own concept of a University called the “University of the Streets.” The
reputation of the projects might be appalling, but not the residents. People from the
projects are not all awful. It is about free will and their choice of behavior. However, it
falls on a stereotypical factor of various views and cultures from others.