Adele Stowe 5S ENGLISH LITERATURE

Question: In society, people are judged based on their social class. Write an essay in which
2 essays are used to display this form of discrimination. Include how this was displayed in
the narrative point of view, compare and contrast the social classes in one of the stories
chosen and explain a technique used to display this.

In this world, lots of people are discriminated because of their social class. In the book, A
World of Prose, two stories which displayed this type of discrimination was in Mum Luby
and the Social Work and The Two Grandmothers. In this essay, the narrative point of view
will be taken into consideration when talking about social class discrimination along with the
techniques used by the authors and the differences in social classes will be explored.

In Mum Luby and the Social Worker, the narrative point of view is a child narrator. This
means, that we the readers wouldn’t be able to access the full emotion necessary for the story
as children are innocent and can’t see the bigger picture. Thus, in this story, it is clear that
social discrimination when Elijah, the narrator says, “The lady acted like she didn’t hear that.
She just wrinkled her nose like she smelled something bad.” This line was referring to the
moment Mum offered Miss Rushmore salt pork and lima beans to eat. As it was noticed,
Miss Rushmore doesn’t particularly indulge in food items like this. This is one of the
instances of social discrimination displayed through the narrative point of view.

In The Two Grandmothers, the narrative point of view is also a child narrator which is the
granddaughter of Grandma Del and Grandma Elaine (Towser). In this the social class
discrimination is very distinct throughout the story and Grandma Del and Towser are
complete opposites. This is expressed through the mails the granddaughter sends to her
mother. It can be seen that Grandma Del is a very church going and traditional grandmother
who lives in the country and makes sweets. Towser however is very much social in the sense
that she is very narcissistic, materialistic and prefers to go on dates.

In both stories there is a distinct difference among the social classes in the characters, but in
The Two Grandmothers, this appears to be more prominent. Grandma Del which is the
paternal grandmother as said before is very church going who lives in the country, has
animals in her yard and makes gifts for her granddaughter. Grandma Del is very down to
earth and doesn’t indulge in the material aspect of this world. She is also quite proud of her
granddaughter’s dark complexion and hair texture.

Grandma Elaine or Towser who is the maternal grandmother is quite the opposite as she
indulges in the material aspects of this world. She believes the best gifts are bought and
doesn’t care for religion and prefers to go on dates. She also is quite narcissistic and doesn’t
like Grandma Del as she doesn’t consider her on the same level as herself. Due to these
descriptions we can see the distinction in social classes.

In both stories the technique that is prominently used to be able to distinct between the social
classes is characterisation. This will be the most suitable as you are comparing social classes
which entirely involve the behaviours of the characters and how they carry about themselves.
The use of characterisation is used to describe Mum Luby, Miss Rushmore, Grandma Del and
Grandma Elaine and this served to be useful as the readers were able to distinct between the
various characters in their stories.

Taking all the information into consideration, it can be seen that social discrimination is a
serious issue as it causes certain people to be treated a certain way. Through the narrative
point of views, authors can show these topics through characters interaction or what they see.
Authors also use various techniques like characterisation to show the clear distinction in
social classes in their stories.