Social Class In The Funeral Dress

Imagine a life where people were placed on a tier right after birth and if a person just so happens to be born into the bottom tier then, they are probably poor for the remainder of their life. This is social class in America. There are four different social classes in America; the lower class, the working class, the middle class, and the upper class. In The Funeral Dress, every character has a place in one of these social classes. The characters in the book offer a view of real world America and how an individual's social class can determine how they are treated by society. In The Funeral Dress, Susan Gregg Gilmore uses imagery, dialogue, and the setting to identify the social classes based on the social and economic status of the characters. Gilmore uses imagery to incorporate the lower class throughout the novel. Imagery is the use of words and phrases that create a mental image for the reader. In the following quote the reader can see vividly the living conditions that the Bullards are living in. “She needed to pee but refused to confront the cold that had settled inside the house wrapped in plywood and pieces of tar paper. In the winter, it grew so bitter sometimes, a glass of water left by the bedside froze solid by morning” (Gilmore 41). When someone reads the

Gilmore uses a variety of ways to illuminate these social classes throughout the book including imagery, setting, and dialogue. Social class is still an issue and many people can never grow in social class. For the majority of people, such as Nolan and Emmalee, the social class that they are born into is the social class that they will live in for the rest of their lives. Being placed in a social class is like trying to climb a never ending ladder; no matter how hard they climb they can never quite reach the