Not Poor, Just Broke's Themes

LS 201 Mini-Project

We did a project about Not Poor, Just Broke in our Literature Studies class. These are themes we have found so far. I hope this will help those of you who need it. :)

 “Love and Struggle” 

In the story he fell in love with Helene Tucker, a light-completed girl with pigtails and nice manners. She was always clean and she was smart in the school. He loved her for her goodness, her cleanness and her popularity. Because of love made Richard become a nice boy. He brushed his hair and he even got an old lady’s handkerchief with him because he did not want Helene to see him wipe his nose with his hand and he even got his clothes cleaned every day. But for that he had to scooped out some chopped ice and let it melt in order to get water to wash his socks and his only clothes when he did not have water in his house. In order to stop his hunger he sometimes had to eat paste. He even shined shoes and sold papers so that he could have enough money to buy himself a daddy on the Negro Payday.

“Discrimination and Poverty” 

No matter how hard Richard had worked and earned money to donate on the Negro Payday by himself the teacher still did not accept his money. She thought that Richard is just an idiot and a troublemaker, who could not read, could not spell, or do arithmetic. The teacher was never interested in finding the reason why he could not concentrate on the lessons, instead she treated him in an unpleasant way and she even said something that she should not have said.

Sample Video :

“Lying and Dishonorable”

 On the Negro Payday, Richard lied everyone in his class that he had a daddy that his daddy gave him fifteen dollars to turn in but he did not know the fact that everybody in the class was already know that he did not have a daddy until the teacher said “We know you don’t have a daddy” so he walked out of his class with shame. After that day he thought that the whole world had been in that classroom. There were shames no matter where he went or what he did. At the end there were so many shames for him after everyone knew that he did not have a daddy.