Sam B on Tichi

Tichi identifies Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed as a great example of a contemporary muckraker novel as it not only identifies the "could look no way but downward" mentality described by John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress of the then muckracker, but also as an example of how this gap between the rich and the poor is still huge, with few signs of change. Tichi also identifies how Ehrenreich's admittance that she wasn't living without any cushions or comforts as helping to make the experience more real and believable for the reader. Finally the quantitative facts such as wage per hour in relation to what the employers are receiving found by Ehrenreich helped to show a definite corruption or injustice within the system.

Tichi doesn't so much change my understanding of Nickel and Dimed but highlights another level of the novel that I didn't focus on, or at least remember, as much before. Similarly to Christine when reading the novel I was very focused on getting the individual facts and incidents Ehrenreich had un-earthed treating the novel almost like crime fiction in the sense that I wanted to collect all the facts and add them together to create my conclusion. Thinking back the emotional connection, identified by Tichi made the reading of the novel fairly easy meaning I could engage with it possibly even relate to it more. Sam and Jo's insight into the working-poor being "unseen and invisible" is a very astute point as you would hope if the powers that be within America could see or chose to see these levels of poverty they would seek to solve the problem, especially within today's contemporary society.