Paul Fussell :: essays research papers

Though Mohr doesnt expressly say so, I believe it is safe to assume that Mrs. Hamma is a white woman of at to the lowest degree moderate wealth. This immediately alienates her from her students, most of whom ar Hispanic, speak poor English, and are doing menial tasks for little pay. In fact, there are only two students in the class of twenty-eight who are from Europe, one Italian and one Polish. Another clear difference between Mrs. Hamma and most of her students is gender. When she is calling on the students to speak well-nigh themselves, the text says, There were more men than women and Mrs. Hamma called two or three men for each women. It was her way of maintaining a balance. Much of this story is focused on using education as a means to changing social status. This is a very American idea, the thought that one can change a great deal of their life and lifestyle by educating themselves, getting a higher paying job, and working hard.In Paul Fussels book Class, he proposes a br an- immature sort of class of people, those who dont fit into the nine categories he has discussed previously in the book (top out-of-sight, upper, upper middle, middle, high proletarian, mid-proletarian, low proletarian, destitute, and bottom out-of-sight). This new class he calls X people and describes them as curious, creative, talented, irreverent, and self-sufficient. Those who belong to this new class do not care which class one comes from and do not care what others think of them and their relationships with people outside their class.Though Fussels book was written at around the same time as Mohrs story, it is obvious that Mohr does not believe that this. Most of his characters are caught in the lower class of American immigrants. The simple fact that for the last 200 years or so, immigrants are almost immediately lumped into the lower class is somewhat hypocritical. America as we know it was founded by immigrants yet, once these immigrants had been in the country for a coup le generations, they mystify to forget what it is like to be a immigrant and discriminate against newer migrant families. Even the character in The English Lesson who had been a professor in Poland is now at a lower place that same discrimination immigrants, and specifically non-English speaking immigrants, are faced with. In his statement about himself, he says, Since four months I am working in large hospital as position of porter in maintenance department.