TheNextBigWriter Premium → Can poverty take a life?
Pages 1
In writing, does it work to say poverty claimed someone's life? Do you need to get more specific and talk about hunger or lack of shelter? Disease? Is it more or less poignant?
I'm trying to talk about parents who died from a combination of poor diet and lacking shelter.
How about something like: "My parents lived in poverty. Poor diet and lack of adequate shelter eventually claimed their life."
I would simply say something like, "The trappings of poverty eventually claimed their lives." I think the average reader is familiar with what those trappings are. But, if you want to be more specific, Bill's suggestion would be a good reference. Just my take.
Alan
My parents lived in poverty. Poor diet and disease eventually claimed them.
In writing, does it work to say poverty claimed someone's life? Do you need to get more specific and talk about hunger or lack of shelter? Disease? Is it more or less poignant?
I'm trying to talk about parents who died from a combination of poor diet and lacking shelter.
You can’t “die of poverty,” per se. You can certainly die from the “effects of poverty.”
You can die of starvation or diseases that attack the chronically malnourished, but you can’t “die from lack of shelter” per se. Lack of shelter exposes you to conditions that could kill, such as cold, lightning strike flooding, heat, disease, animal attack, ad infinitum—but in those cases, the “lack of shelter” is merely a contributing factor, so indirect.
I’d be specific about what caused the death if merely for precision.
With respect to poignancy, most anything can be rendered poignant if you have the writing skill to evoke pity from the reader. That, of course, begins by having created characters the reader cares about. But by the same token, the most poignant situation won’t be so if you don’t have the writing chops to make it so.
I'm surprised Temple wants it spelled out. One writes, "Poverty claimed another victim," and the reader can make the interpretation - helped, perhaps, by the description of the victim when discovered, but not necessary, since we should already have a context in the story.
To be fair, you can take anything to an extreme if you want to be precise. You don't die from falling off a building, you die from splatting on the ground. You don't die from a flood, you die from things that happen in a flood. It sounds silly, and I think that's what I'm trying to get at. I've been knocked in the past for over-explaining to my readers which is what I'm trying to avoid. Dying of poverty, though, seemed to verge on being potentially too vague so I wanted to see what you all thought. In some ways, I felt like I was giving poverty too much agency. Thank you all for your opinions.
The place where I mention this is in passing. Its a brief bit of backstory against a larger narrative and it lends to an explanation for a host of actions taken by this character and others. It's one sentence and I wanted it brief.
I'm surprised Temple wants it spelled out. One writes, "Poverty claimed another victim," and the reader can make the interpretation - helped, perhaps, by the description of the victim when discovered, but not necessary, since we should already have a context in the story.
I agree. To explain too much is an over-killing, even though if you're a purist, nobody actually dies from poverty. IMHO, being too explicit, unless required by the plot (because, for example, you as an author want to point that somebody specifically starved to death), assumes that either the reader needs too many explanations because they don't understand (AKA the reader is stupid), or the reader is gonna frown because the author is not purist enough (I don't think that might happen with "die of poverty")
My conclusion: "die of poverty" is explicit enough and any reader understands the death, in the end, came because of one of the many problems poverty represents: diseases, starvation, lack of proper shelter, etc...
"Die from the effects of poverty" is a bit more proper, but I still find it snob and assuming the reader either needs clarification or is too smarty-pants.
Kiss,
Gacela
An income level of $12,140 is considered poverty level in the U.S. in 2018 (25,100 for a family of four). An estimated 43 million people (100 million by some) live at or below the poverty level in America. It is highly likely that if 13 - 33 percent of Americans dropped dead form poverty you would have your concrete answer.
I might add that my family lived in so-called abject poverty until I entered an orphanage at almost nine and none of my family died from it. Absolutely the long term effects of poverty can kill, but not poverty per se. Still, in literature, we often speak in abstract or hyperbolic terms and there is nothing wrong with using such implied concepts in pointed prose. The author is the judge and jury for his work. My no food stamps worth. Take care. Vern
Excellent responses. Thank you all so very much.
In writing, does it work to say poverty claimed someone's life?
Within creative writing, absolutely.
That is the beauty of it. The inference is the essence of the art. Brevity fires the imagination. Having everything spelled out in a technically correct , box ticked fashion is a sure-fire story killer.
In literature, you can say what you want, so if you want to say someone died from poverty, sure, go ahead. You'll be in the tradition of Dickens, Victor Hugo, Zola, and others who did this. Strictly speaking, it's one's responses to poverty that might lead to death. Zweig, a real world billionaire, became that way because he was born in poverty. Hollis Brown (yes, a fictional character, but hey, that's my point) killed himself and his family because he lived in poverty.
By the way, you're writing fiction, correct?
Fiction writers often write: love kills, hatred kills, greed kills, pride kills - etc.
In the same metaphorical vein, poverty can kill.Heck, the more I think about it, the more I think you should play it up metaphorically.
"The hand of poverty choked my parents."
"Poverty strangled my parents to death."
I love these quotes!!!!
Kiss
Gacela
In literature, you can say what you want, so if you want to say someone died from poverty, sure, go ahead. You'll be in the tradition of Dickens, Victor Hugo, Zola, and others who did this. Strictly speaking, it's one's responses to poverty that might lead to death. Zweig, a real world billionaire, became that way because he was born in poverty. Hollis Brown (yes, a fictional character, but hey, that's my point) killed himself and his family because he lived in poverty.
Don't forget Niels Henrik Abel!
njc, yes, a great example!
Pages 1
TheNextBigWriter Premium → Can poverty take a life?
