Revolt Against Ugliness Analysis

Eugene Lyons wrote about the realities of the idealistic notions of rags-to-riches. His life was riddled with hardship as he was growing up as an immigrant on the East Side of New York. In his essay, “Revolt against Ugliness,” Lyons spoke of how deep emotion feelings were invoked in people when they heard the stories of folks pulling themselves up by the bootstraps. He pointed out that the stories of success are not written by those who never get a leg up, but rather the “true or near true stories” are authored by the few and far between who make it out of poverty and hardship. The grim truth he spoke of was that even the youth had to work in order to help their family earn money for the bare necessities of food, shelter and clothing. The biggest thing that annoyed Lyons was this idealization of poverty as the “university of hard knocks.” It was this idea that because one grew up poor they had learned quick what the world was like and it had made them strong. He was infuriated by the women in furs who came into the slums where he lived assuring them “patronizingly of the blessings”

In essence, to revolt one needs to have a burning desire and a deep disdain for the status quo. Lyons was speaking of those who were revolting were doing so in the sense that they were turning away from the ugliness of their upbringing and moving up or out into the world. From the slums of the East Side where chaos and weathered faces were the norms to making it to a more ordered, prettier way of life. Pretty in the sense that the outside is polished because inside it took a different makeup to revolt, one that doesn’t hold connotations of niceties rather “a flaming ball that blots out nearly everything else...”. The revolt can also be subtly in the sacrifices Lyons’ parents, and sibling made to afford him a higher