On Dumpster Diving Analysis

While you're walking down toward your dumpster to throw your trash think about how much food is going to waste just because it's a day over the expiration date. The essay “On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eighner comes from his book Travels with Lizbeth. In this essay Eighner speaks about his journey throughout his life living on the street and having to join the dumpster diving family. Although the term dumpster diving for him proved to be inaccurate because he lacked the ability to lower himself into dumpsters. He prefers the word “scavenging” when referring to what he does to obtain food and daily necessities. Dumpster diving proves that one person's trash can benefit someone else’s life. Eighner used first person point of view he was talking about his personal experience and daily life. In the pre-reading it states that Eighner was 40 years old when he became homeless, but surprisingly it

He says that many of his friends often ask “Do you think these crackers are really safe to eat?” (Pg.774) this question upsets him because he wouldn't give someone food that is bad on purpose. To bring in the sarcasm and lighten up his anger he says that for some reason they always ask about the crackers. Eighner isn't sarcastic throughout the whole essay he is very informative as well. The information about the different stages of dumpster divers he gives is really interesting because you would think that a dumpster diver is as simple as that just diving for food. Surprisingly there is a lot of things that go through a new dumpster divers head like “ Every grain of rice is a maggot.” (Pg.777) these are all mental images that occur with a beginner that go away over time. Eighner has found the perfect blend between sarcasm, humor and information making this essay easy to comprehend and has a wider audience because of