Approximately 48,472,800 Americans live in poverty: 15.2% of the population. Poverty is clearly an ongoing issue in today’s society. Many people today look down upon, and think badly of, those who are impoverished. Intolerance of poverty is an attitude held by most characters in “The Jacket”. These attitudes reflect the current intolerance towards poverty and persist throughout the story. Gary Soto’s childhood struggle with bullying due to his poverty shows just how real the effects of this intolerance can be.
In “The Jacket”, Gary is often a victim of himself. He harbors just as much intolerance for his own poverty as the other, better off characters do. Gary’s intolerance of his poverty is shown through his hatred of the jacket his mother buys him. “I stared at the jacket, like an enemy, thinking bad things before I took off my old jacket, whose sleeves climbed halfway up my elbow,” (Soto
…show more content…
One example of this is when Gary takes off the coat, because he would rather be cold than look poor and be made fun of. “Even though it was cold, I took off the jacket during lunch and played kickball in a thin shirt, my arms feeling like braille from goose bumps,” (Soto 5). The fact that Gary preferred to freeze shows just how strong his resentment towards his own poverty really is. Things do not improve for Gary as time goes on. His classmates start to avoid him, rather than be associated with his poverty. “Even the girls who had been friendly blew away like loose flowers to follow the boys in neat jackets,” (Soto 5). Gary is slowly left more and more alone. The other children do not want to be around him and he is left to stand in silence to the side of the schoolyard, because no one would play with him. Tragically, these kinds of situations tend to occur even now. The poorer kids that cannot afford the new and cool toys or clothes are often left behind in favor of the kids that